THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


Kate  Gordon  Moore 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   DEVELOPMENT 
OF   KELIGION 


VOL.    I. 

PHILOSOPHY  OF   EELIGION 


PHILOSOPHY   AND    DEVELOPMENT 
OF    RELIGION 


THE   GIFFORD   LECTURES   DELIVERED   BEFORE 
THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   EDINBURGH,   1894 


BY 

OTTO   PFLEIDERER,  D.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF    THEOLOGY,     UNIVERSITY    OF    BERLIN 


IN    TWO    VOLUMES 
VOL.    L 


K'ew  York  :    G.   P.   PUTNAM'S    SONS 

Edinburgh:    W.    BLACKWOOD    &    SONS 

1894 


All  Eights  reserved 


v,/ 


PREFACE. 


My  Gifford  Lectures  were  delivered  at  Edinburuh  in 
January  and  February  of  this  year,  and  I  sent  them 
forthwith  to  press  witliout  material  alteration  or 
addition.  The  verbal  form  alone  has  been  some- 
what improved  here  and  there ;  and  some  passages 
omitted  from  want  of  time  in  delivering  the  Lectures, 
have  been  incorporated  in  the  following  pages.  It 
seemed  to  me  unnecessary  to  add  anything  to  what 
the  Lectures  originally  contained,  but  I  may  refer  those 
readers  who  are  further  interested  in  my  views  to  my 
'  Eeligionsphilosophie,'  third  edition  ('  Philosophy  of 
Religion/  translated  from  the  second  German  edition, 
1886),  and  to  my  '  Urchristenthum '  (Berlin,  1887). 

My  hearty  thanks  are  due  to  Dr  Hastie  for  his 
translation  of  the  Lectures  from  my  German  manu- 
script, and  to  Professor  Kirkpatrick  for  his  careful 
revision  of  the  proofs. 

OTTO   PFLEIDEEER. 

Ap'il  16,  1894. 


850051 


CONTENTS   OF   THE   FIRST   VOLUME. 


LECT.  PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTION,               .....  1 

II.    RELIGION   AND   MORALITY,         ....  37 

III.  RELIGION   AND   SCIENCE,             ....  69 

IV.  THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD  :    ITS   ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT,  102 
V.    THE   REVELATION    OF    GOD    IN    THE    NATURAL   ORDER 

OP   THE   WORLD,     .  .  .  .  .137 

VL    THE   REVELATION   OP   GOD   IN   THE    MORAL    AND    RE- 
LIGIOUS  ORDER   OP   THE   WORLD,  .  .  170 
VIL    THE   RELIGIOUS   VIEW    OP   MAN  : — 

1.   HIS   ESSENTIAL   NATURE   AND    HIS    ACTUALITY,    .  204 

VIIL    THE   RELIGIOUS   VIEW   OP   MAN  : — 

II.    REDEMPTION   AND   EDUCATION,  .  .  236 

IX.    THE   RELIGIOUS   VIEW   OF   THE   WORLD  : — 

I.   IDEALISM   AND   NATURALISM,        .  .  .  267 

X.    THE   RELIGIOUS   VIEW   OP   THE   WORLD  : — 

IL    OPTIMISM  AND   PESSIMISM,  .  .  .  299 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   EELIGION. 


L  E  C  T  U  E  E     I. 

INTKODUCTION. 

I  HAVE,  first  of  all,  to  express  my  thanks  to  the  Senatus 
of  the  University  of  Edinburgh  for  the  high  honour 
which  they  have  bestowed  upon  me  in  choosing  me  to 
be  the  Gifford  Lecturer  for  this  year.  The  greater 
the  confidence  thereby  reposed  in  me,  so  much  the 
more  do  I  feel  doubt  and  anxiety  as  to  whether  I 
shall  succeed  in  completely  satisfying  this  confidence. 
Eor  it  is  not  an  easy  matter  under  any  circum- 
stances to  speak  in  a  satisfactory  way  about  the  highest 
questions  which  can  engage  the  human  mind,  before 
an  assembly  like  this — composed  as  it  is  of  highly 
cultivated  hearers  of  the  most  varied  religious  and 
scientific  views ;  and  in  the  case  of  a  stranger  the  diffi- 
culty is  increased  in  many  respects  to  the  highest  degree. 
VOL.  I.  A 


2  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Not  only  must  his  imperfect  mastery  of  your  language 
compel  him  to  appeal  for  an  indulgent  judgment  re- 
gardincc  the  form  of  his  Lectures,  but  he  also  finds 
himself  in  a  difficult  position  even  with  regard  to  the 
selection  of  the  subjects  to  be  treated,  because  he  does 
not  possess,  like  a  native  of  the  country,  the  living 
feeling  that  animates  his  audience,  nor  does  he  suffi- 
ciently know  the  interests  and  questions  which  are 
specially  prevailing  at  the  time.  It  is  but  too  possible 
that  he  may  easily  treat  in  too  great  detail  much  that 
is  already  known  and  self-evident  to  his  hearers,  and 
may  touch  only  in  a  cursory  way  other  themes  with 
regard  to  which  they  would  specially  desire  to  have 
more  thorough  discussion  in  detail.  In  these  respects 
I  must  certainly  appeal  to  your  consideration,  although 
perhaps  to  a  certain  degree  the  difficulty  is  lessened  in 
my  case  by  the  fact  that,  in  consequence  of  several 
former  visits  to  this  city,  and  of  friendly  intercourse 
with  some  of  its  social  circles,  and  the  amiable  hospi- 
tality which  I  received  on  these  occasions,  the  spiritual 
life  of  Edinburgh  is  not  quite  strange  to  me. 

I  confess  that  the  idea  of  appearing  here,  particularly 
in  Edinburgh,  as  Gifford  Lecturer  on  "Natural  Ee- 
ligion,"  has  had  for  me  a  peculiar  attraction  and 
charm.  This  city  has  always  had  a  special  interest 
for  me  ever  since  I  came  to  know  it,  because  I  saw 
here  the  two  great  living  forces  of  Eeligion  and 
Science  combined  with  one  another,  and  even  rivalling 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

each  other,  in  a  degree  such  as  perhaps  can  be  seen 
nowhere  else.  And  more  especially  as  regards  the 
theme  of  "  Natural  Eeligion,"  the  development  of  this 
conception  appears  to  me  to  be  connected  in  the 
closest  way  with  the  history  of  the  spiritual  life  of 
this  city.  Let  me,  as  witnesses  for  this  view,  single 
out  from  many  others  only  three  names,  those  of  John 
Knox,  David  Hume,  and  Thomas  Carlyle. 

Perhaps  the  first  of  these  names  will  appear  to  you 
somewhat  paradoxical  in  this  connection.  You  may 
ask.  What  has  the  Reformer,  with  his  belief  in  the 
Bible,  to  do  with  "  Natural  Eeligion "  ?  Does  his 
Cflowinor  zeal  for  the  faith  not  rather  stand  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  cold  scepticism  of  a  David  Hume  ? 
This  question  I  take  leave  to  answer,  in  the  first  place, 
with  this  other  question.  Would  such  a  work  as  David 
Hume's  '  Dialogues  on  Natural  Eeligion '  have  been 
ever  possible  in  Edinburgh  without  the  work  of  Eefor- 
mation  carried  out  by  John  Knox  ?  If,  as  I  suppose, 
you  will  answer  this  question  with  me  in  the  negative, 
you  have  thereby  also  already  admitted  that,  notwith- 
standing all  the  manifest  opposition  between  these  two 
men,  John  Knox  and  David  Hume,  there  does  in  fact 
also  exist  a  positive  connection  between  them;  nay 
more,  that  in  the  last  instance  no  other  than  the  Ee- 
former  of  Scotland,  with  his  strong  faith,  has  the  merit 
of  the  fact  that  we  can  to-day  in  Edinburgh  carry  on 
scientific  discussions  concerning  the  subject  of  Natural 


4  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Eeligion.  Undoubtedly  such  discussions  would  have 
been  to  Knox  at  best  a  matter  of  extreme  indifference, 
if  not  even  somewhat  of  a  horror  to  him.  The  Ee- 
former,  as  such,  is  not  a  man  given  to  scientific  in- 
vestigation, but  to  practical  action.  But  as  regards 
Knox's  activity,  in  what  else  did  it  consist  but  in  the 
establishment  or  restoration  of  Natural  Cliristianity  ? 
His  object  was  to  free  Christianity  from  the  deforma- 
tions and  disguises  which  it  had  suffered  in  the  dogmas, 
worship,  and  hierarchy  of  the  Eoman  Church,  and  to 
bring  its  genuine,  original,  or  natural  truth  in  faith 
and  morals  again  to  recognition.  Hence  he  went  back 
from  all  the  conventional  traditions  and  usages  of  the 
Church  to  the  historical  source  of  religion,  to  the  Word 
of  God  in  Holy  Scripture,  and  to  the  inner  testimony 
of  its  truth,  to  the  voice  of  God  in  the  conscience.  In 
the  harmony  of  this  inner  testimony  with  that  his- 
torical testimony  the  Eeformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century  found  its  fixed  point,  from  which  it  was  able 
to  move  the  world,  to  shatter  the  ecclesiastical  system 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and,  by  its  liberation  of  the  con- 
sciences of  men  from  priestly  tyranny,  also  to  pave  the 
way  for  the  civil  liberty  of  the  peoples. 

It  was  certainly  a  far  way  from  the  natural — that  is 
to  say,  Biblical — Christianity  of  the  Eeformer,  to  the 
natural — that  is,  rational — Christianity  of  a  Locke, 
Toland,  and  Tindal,  and,  finally,  to  David  Hume's 
'  Dialogues  on  Natural   Eeligion.'      We  should  never 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

forget  that  the  Eeformation  of  the  sixteenth  century 
did  not  spring  directly  from  an  intellectual  interest, 
but  from  the  practical  interest  to  purify  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  Church  from  the  abuses  which  had 
become  offensive  to  the  pious  conscience.  Hence  its 
criticism  was  directed  only  against  the  ecclesiastical 
traditions,  and,  moreover,  against  them  only  in  so  far 
as  they  had  become  directly  prejudicial  to  the  religious 
and  moral  life.  The  Eeformation,  however,  stopped 
short  before  the  Bible,  and  indeed  even  enhanced  its 
infallible  divine  authority,  because  it  needed  this  firm 
support  in  its  struggle  against  the  Eoman  Church. 
Besides,  it  had  maintained  the  old  ecclesiastical  dogmas 
regarding  the  Trinity,  the  Deity  of  Christ,  the  Atone- 
ment, Grace,  and  Election,  because  it  was  believed  that 
these  dogmas  were  grounded  on  Holy  Scripture.  Thus 
the  faith  that  proceeded  from  the  Eeformation  was  a 
mixture  of  old  and  new,  which  indeed  indicated  a  pro- 
gress in  practical  respects,  yet  still  contained  for  the 
thinking  reason  as  many  points  of  objection  as  did  the 
medieval  scholasticism. 

With  this  halfness  the  human  mind  could  not  per- 
manently stop.  When  it  had  once  exercised  its  good 
right  to  a  critical  testing  of  the  traditional  on  one  side, 
what  was  to  hinder  it  from  ooinq-  still  further  ?  The 
impulses  of  this  movement  came  from  various  sides. 
Natural  Science  had  made  powerful  progress  since  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.     The  old  idea  of  the 


6  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

world  had  been  overturned  by  Copernicus ;  our  earth 
had  been  removed  from  its  central  position,  and  had 
been  shown  to  be  one  of  the  innumerable  revolving 
bodies  in  the  universe ;  and  thereby  the  fixed  positions 
of  above  and  below,  which  constituted  the  frame  of  the 
image  of  the  world  according  to  the  old  faith,  had  dis- 
appeared. Thereafter  the  tliinking  mind  penetrated 
always  further  into  the  laws  of  the  universe  by  its 
methods  of  observing,  calculating,  and  experimenting, 
and  with  every  step  in  the  progress  of  inquiry  it 
strengthened  itself  in  the  conviction  not  only  of  the 
immutable  order  and  regularity  of  the  events  that 
happened  in  the  world,  but  also  of  its  own  capability 
of  ascertaining  the  truth  in  all  departments  by  rational 
thinking.  And,  in  contrast  to  this  proud  progress  of 
science,  how  melancholy  was  the  condition  of  the  life 
of  the  Church!  Out  of  the  Eeformation  had  arisen 
various  new  Churches  and  Confessions  which  were 
engaged  in  the  most  violent  quarrels  with  each  other 
and  with  the  old  Church ;  and  from  the  religious  con- 
fusions of  the  time  there  had  grown  bloody  wars,  rev- 
olutions, and  reactions  in  all  countries.  The  sacrifices 
required  on  every  side  by  these  religious  conflicts  were 
innumerable.  In  place  of  the  old  religious  compulsion 
of  the  universal  Church,  there  had  arisen  the  not  less 
intolerance  of  the  several  religious  parties  which  had 
attained  to  political  power.  Under  such  impressions 
the  question  necessarily  and  inevitably  pressed  itself 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

upon  thinking  men  as  to  whether  the  distinguishing 
forms  of  faith,  to  which  these  numberless  sacrifices 
were  brought,  were  of  such  high  value  after  all.  The 
question  was  asked  whether  the  truth  of  Christianity 
really  lies  in  the  mysterious  dogmas,  about  which  the 
believers  contended  with  each  other  all  the  more 
bitterly  the  less  they  were  rationally  conceivable ;  or 
whether  the  truth  did  not  much  rather  lie  in  the 
universal  truths  about  which  all  are  agreed,  because 
reason  is  able  to  comprehend  their  truth. 

Founding  upon  such  reflections,  Lord  Herbert  of 
Cherbury  published  as  early  as  1624  his  work  on 
'  Truth,  and  its  Eelation  to  Eevelation,'  in  which  he 
presented  five  "really  catholic  truths,"  concerning 
God,  moral  worship,  and  future  recompense,  and  des- 
ignated them  as  the  true  kernel  which  had  been  con- 
tained in  all  religions  from  the  beginning,  but  which 
had  befen  obscured  in  the  course  of  time  by  the  fraud 
or  deception  of  priests.  In  the  same  sense  John  Locke, 
towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  wrote  his 
work  on  '  The  Eeasonableness  of  Christianity.'  John 
Toland  wrote  on  '  Christianity  not  Mysterious  ' ;  while 
Matthew  Tindal,  in  1730,  published  his  treatise  en- 
titled '  Christianity  as  old  as  the  Creation,  or  the 
Gospel  a  Republication  of  the  Eeligion  of  Nature.' 
The  common  thought  of  these  writings  was,  that 
Christianity  is  essentially  nothing  else  than  the  moral 
religion  of  reason,  the  truth  of  which  is  to  be  appre- 


8  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

hended  by  the  universal  human  reason,  and  which 
therefore  was  originally  common  to  all  men,  but  which 
has  been  distorted  in  later  ages  by  manifold  supersti- 
tion. Christianity  has,  properly  speaking,  introduced 
nothing  new  ;  it  only  brought  the  original  true  religion 
of  reason  again  to  light  by  removing  the  false  additions 
to  it;  but  it  soon  again  fell  under  the  same  fate  of 
superstitious  distortion  by  mysterious  dogmas. 

What  gave  these  men  courage  for  such  bold  criticism 
of  the  faith  of  the  Church  was  the  conviction  that 
what  still  remained  after  their  criticism — namely,  the 
belief  in  God  and  immortality — was  irrefragable  truth 
that  could  be  proved  by  reason  with  mathematical  cer- 
tainty, and  had  been  possessed  by  all  rational  men  from 
the  first.  It  is  the  merit  of  David  Hume  that  he  sub- 
jected this  assumption  to  a  dissolving  criticism,  and 
thereby  carried  forward  scepticism  to  absolute  doubt. 
His  celebrated  '  Dialogues  on  Natural  Eeligion '  (pub- 
lished in  1779,  three  years  after  his  death)  begin  with 
the  assertion  that  the  true — that  is,  the  sceptical — phil- 
osophy is  best  at  peace  with  theology,  seeing  that,  next 
to  total  ignorance,  nothing  is  so  conducive  to  certainty 
of  faith  as  the  insight  that  we  can  know  nothing  at  all, 
and  therefore  are  reduced  to  unconditional  belief.  It  is 
difficult  to  determine  how  far  he  was  in  earnest  with 
this  conclusion  ;  it  is  certain  only  that  he  wished  by 
his  frequently -repeated  reference  to  Eevelation  to 
secure  a  justification  for  the  unreserved  criticism  of 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

the  Eeligion  of  Eeason.  It  is  specially  the  popular 
inference  from  the  conformity  to  design  in  the  world 
to  an  intelligent  former  of  the  world,  against  which  he 
advanced  a  series  of  acute  objections.  That  inference, 
he  proceeded  to  say,  is  inadmissible,  because  it  rests 
upon  the  analogy  of  the  origin  of  the  world  with  the 
origin  of  human  works  of  art,  whereas  the  origin  of  the 
world  is  an  absolutely  singular  case  or  effect,  and  is  not 
to  be  judged  according  to  any  human  analogy.  For  the 
world  as  a  whole,  the  analogy  of  the  natural  production 
and  growth  of  organisms  has  a  nearer  relation  than 
that  of  the  artistic  making  of  the  objects  of  human 
art.  Why,  then,  in  attempting  the  explanation  of  the 
world,  should  we  not  rather  stop  at  the  principle  of 
natural  development,  than  seek  a  transcendental  cause? 
Hume  also  referred,  at  least  in  passing,  to  the  possi- 
bility that  the  apparent  conformity  of  the  world  to 
design  might  be  the  consequence  of  happy  accidents, 
seeing  that  among  the  infinitely  many  possible  com- 
binations of  the  elements  of  the  world  one  might  at 
last  result  so  happily  that  the  forms  which  had  thus 
arisen  might  be  able  to  preserve  and  constantly  main- 
tain themselves.  Finally,  he  asked.  With  what  right 
can  one  assume  the  complete  designedness  of  the 
world,  seeing  that  men  of  all  ages,  and  not  least  the 
Christian  theologians,  had  yet  so  much  to  complain 
of  concerning  the  universal  badness  of  the  world  and 
the  endless  evils  of  this  miserable  life  ?     The  actual 


10  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

condition  of  the  world  is  so  far  from  justifying  us  to 
infer  a  perfect,  all-good,  and  all-wise  Author  of  the 
world,  that,  as  Hume  believes,  it  might  much  rather  be 
regarded  as  the  first  attempt  of  a  beginner  God,  or  as 
the  weak  product  of  an  aged  God ;  nay,  even  the  idea  of 
a  plurality  of  authors,  who  had  mutually  impeded  each 
other,  appears  to  him  to  be  a  hypothesis  worth  consider- 
ing. In  any  case — this  is  his  result — whether  we  accept 
one  God,  or  many  Gods,  or  no  God,  the  world  remains 
always  equally  inconceivable  ;  and  hence  any  of  these 
views  has  just  as  much,  or  as  little,  right  on  its  side  as 
the  others.  The  utmost  that  we  can  assert  is  the  prob- 
ability that  the  cause,  or  the  causes,  of  the  order  of  the 
universe  may  have  a  remote  similarity  with  human  in- 
telligence,— a  proposition  which,  as  Hume  very  rightly 
remarks,  is  much  too  indefinite  to  suffice  as  the  prin- 
ciple of  a  practical  religion. 

A  similarly  negative  result  is  also  reached  by  the 
criticism  of  the  proof  of  Immortality,  as  Hume  has 
treated  it  in  his  essays  on  Suicide  and  Immortality. 
The  popular  proof  from  retribution  rests  on  an  inadmis- 
sible introduction  of  juridical  points  of  view  into  mor- 
als, and  on  the  unjustified  assumption  that  retributive 
justice,  because  it  does  not  sufficiently  exhibit  itself  in 
this  world,  which  is  known  to  us,  must  work  so  much 
the  more  certainly  in  a  future  world.  Our  present 
experience  shows  us  a  certain  retribution  in  the  natural 
inward  and  outward  consequences  with  which  virtue 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

and  vice  are  wont  to  be  accompanied.  But  above  all 
this  there  is  still  a  something  further  to  be  desired,  or 
rather  required — namely,  that  the  constitution  of  the 
world  should  direct  itself  according  to  the  wishes  of  our 
supposed  standard  reason.  But  that  there  lies  a  guar- 
antee for  immortality  in  the  instinctive  desire  of  the 
human  soul  for  infinite  development,  is  not  admitted  by 
Hume,  since  our  capacities  hardly  appear  to  be  sufficient 
for  a  tolerable  life  in  time,  and  much  less  for  a  whole 
eternity.  On  the  contrary,  he  finds  in  the  powerful 
instinct  of  the  fear  of  death  an  urgent  warning  of 
Nature  against  illusions  with  regard  to  the  life  beyond. 
In  no  case,  therefore,  can  the  belief  in  immortality  be 
supported  upon  rational  grounds,  but  only  upon  the 
revelation  of  the  Gospel. 

If,  then,  the  grounding  of  religion  upon  reason  is  in 
every  respect  as  problematical  as  Hume's  criticism 
sought  to  prove,  the  question  arises.  How  is  it  to  be 
explained  that  religion  could  take  rise  at  all,  and  be- 
come such  a  powerful  force  in  human  history  ?  Hume 
has  sought  to  solve  this  question  in  his  work  on  '  The 
Natural  History  of  Eeligion.'  It  is  not  the  powerless 
reflections  of  reason  which  are  the  roots  of  religion; 
but,  says  Hume,  the  energetic  and  irrational  passions 
of  the  soul,  and  fictions  of  the  imagination  or  fantasy, 
fear  and  hope,  drove  men  from  the  beginning  to  seek 
their  Gods  behind  the  unknown  forces  of  Nature  on 
which  their  weal  and  woe  depend ;   and  in  this  process 


12  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  fantasy,  in  virtue  of  its  anthropomorphising  ten- 
dency, personified  the  manifestations  of  Nature.     Hence 
it  follows  that  the  oldest  form  of   religion  was   not 
Monotheism,  and  therefore  that  the  primitive  religion 
was  not  (as  the  Deists  supposed)  identical  with  the 
Religion  of  Eeason.     As  little  as  men  cultivated  geom- 
etry  before  agriculture,  just  as  little  had  they,  before 
the  development  of  civilisation  in  the  primitive  pre- 
historic  times,  already  a   Monotheistic  knowledge  of 
God.     The  primitive  men  much  rather  thought  of  their 
Gods  as  powerful  beings  like  men,  but  neither  almighty 
nor  morally  good.     When,  then,  one  God  was  gradually 
raised  above  the  others,  and  especially  when  the  God  of 
a  particular  people  was  elevated  above  those  of  other 
peoples,  and  when,  in  order  to  win  his  favour,  more  and 
more  flattering  expressions  of  honour  were  attributed 
to  him,  at  last  there  was  reached  the  idea  of  an  infinite 
God.     Religious  Monotheism  is  therefore,  according  to 
Hume,  just  as  little  as  religion  in  general,  a  product 
of  reason,  although  it  coincided  accidentally  with  the 
thought  of  God  maintained  by  the  philosophers.     Be- 
sides, the  more  sublimely  Monotheism  is  conceived,  it 
does  so  much  the  less  permanently  satisfy  the  need  of 
the  multitude,  who  would  fain  represent  the  divine 
in  more  vivid  form  and  in  more  intimate  relation ;  and 
hence  they  have  recourse  to  intermediate  beings,  which, 
as  representatives  of  the  highest  God,  now  take  up  his 
r)lace,  and  thereby  the  old  Polytheism  returns  anew. 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

Thus,  according  to  Hume,  the  history  of  religion  moves 
in  a  constant  wavering  or  oscillation  between  Mono- 
theism and  Polytheism,  the  advantages  and  defects  of 
which  maintain  a  certain  reciprocal  equilibrium  between 
them ;  and,  indeed,  the  barbarism  of  Monotheistic  in- 
tolerance and  its  tendency  to  persecution  is,  says  Hume, 
even  worse  than  the  crudeness  of  the  heathen  forms  of 
worship.  Generally  it  appears  to  him  that  the  influ- 
ence of  the  popular  religion  upon  morality  is  exceedingly 
unfavourable.  The  crude  notions  of  the  divine  arbi- 
trariness and  of  the  torments  of  hell  have  a  hardening 
effect  upon  the  soul ;  and  worst  of  all  is  the  delusion 
that  the  favour  of  the  Deity  is  not  to  be  deserved  by 
right  conduct  but  by  ceremonial  observances,  whereby 
morality  is  desecrated  and  the  morals  of  a  people  are 
undermined.  Thus  religion,  like  all  other  things,  has 
also  its  two  sides  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  of  the 
two  predominates  in  the  common  actuality  of  life. 

While  we  are  far  from  being  able  to  concur  in  this 
radical  scepticism,  which  saw  in  religion  only  an  irra- 
tional pathological  phenomenon,  yet  this  must  not 
hinder  us  from  recognising  the  significance  of  Hume 
for  the  science  of  religion.  By  his  logical  criticism  he 
has  destroyed  the  self  -  sufficient  dogmatism  of  the 
period  of  rationalistic  enlightenment,  whose  half-criti- 
cism was  neither  just  to  faith  nor  to  knowledge,  because 
it  imagined  that  it  exhausted  all  reason  in  its  narrow 
intellectual  conceptions,  and  had  no  sense  or  compre- 


14  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

hension  either  for  the  unconscious  reason  of  the  reli- 
gious feelings  and  symbols,  or  for  the  development  of 
reason  in  the  history  of  religion.  It  has  no  longer 
been  possible  since  Hume  to  speak  of  "  Natural 
Eeligion "  in  such  a  sense  as  if  there  had  been  in 
the  beginning  of  the  human  race  a  religion  common 
to  all,  and  consisting  of  a  few  simple  truths  of  reason. 
To  have  destroyed  for  ever  this  illusion  of  the  older 
rationalism  is  Hume's  abiding  merit.  He  has  thereby 
paved  the  way  for  a  mode  of  consideration  which  seeks 
and  finds  the  natural,  not  outside  of  but  in  the  his- 
torical, and  the  rational  not  outside  of  but  in  the 
actual.  One  of  the  most  thoughtful  representatives 
of  this  point  of  view  was  the  historian  Thomas  Carlyle, 
who  was  also  so  closely  connected  with  Edinburgh. 
But  the  way  from  Hume  to  Carlyle  leads  through  the 
German  idealistic  philosophy. 

Immanuel  Kant  was,  according  to  his  own  confession, 
awakened  out  of  his  dogmatic  slumber  by  David  Hume. 
In  his  criticism  of  the  old  metaphysical  proofs  of  the 
existence  of  God,  he  followed  pretty  closely  the  foot- 
steps of  the  great  Scottish  sceptic.  But  whereas  Hume 
stuck  fast  in  the  negation  of  dogmatism  without  being 
able  to  find  a  new  position,  Kant  found  such  a  position 
in  the  Practical  Eeason.  The  Unconditioned,  which, 
according  to  Kant  also,  is  unknowable  by  our  theoretic 
thinking,  he  found  given  in  our  moral  self-consciousness, 
not  as  absolute  being,  but  as  absolute  obligation,  or  as 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

a  demand  of  reason  to  recognise  the  end  of  hnmanity 
in  every  man  as  of  absolute  worth.  This  obligation 
raises  our  existence  above  the  conditioned  phenomena 
of  the  world  of  sense,  and  makes  us  citizens  of  the 
intelligible  world  of  freedom,  or  of  the  spirit.  From 
this  fact  of  our  inner  moral  experience  Kant  has  also 
derived  the  content  of  our  religious  consciousness — the 
"  moral  faith  of  reason,"  as  he  called  it — in  distinction 
from  all  authoritative  reason  that  rests  on  merely  ex- 
ternal and  statutory  grounds.  ]\Iorality  becomes  reli- 
gion, says  Kant,  when  what  it  teaches  to  be  recognised 
as  the  final  end  of  man  is,  at  the  same  time,  thought  as 
the  final  end  of  the  supreme  Law-giver  and  Creator  of 
the  world,  or  God.  This  religious  view  of  our  duty  is 
indeed  not  needed  for  the  grounding  of  our  conscious- 
ness of  duty,  which  rests  exclusively  upon  the  self- 
legislation  of  our  reason ;  but  it  is  certainly  required 
as  a  guarantee  for  the  possibility  of  our  fulfilment  of 
duty.  The  presuppositions  without  which  the  fulfil- 
ment of  our  moral  destination  would  not  be  thinkable 
are  demands  or  "  postulates "  of  the  practical  reason. 
Because  the  moral  law  is  not  realisable  in  any  given 
time  without  remainder,  its  realisation,  according  to 
Kant,  thus  postulates  an  infinite  duration  of  the  per- 
sonality, and  therefore  immortality.  And  because  the 
highest  good  demanded  by  reason  also  embraces,  along 
with  perfect  virtue,  a  corresponding  happiness,  which 
we  ourselves  are  not  able  to  bring  about,  we  have  thus 


16  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

to  accept  the  existence  of  God  as  a  guarantee  for  the 
possibility  of  the  attainment  of  the  highest  good. 
Literally  understood,  this  deduction  appears  to  come 
to  this — that  we  believe  in  God  in  order  to  be  able  to 
hope  for  a  future  reward  of  our  virtue  by  happiness ; 
and  thereby  the  belief  in  God  would  be  grounded  upon 
the  eudtemonistic  passions  of  the  soul.  The  rational 
justification  of  this  position  is  subject  to  all  those 
doubts  which  Hume's  criticism  had  so  acutely  brought 
into  prominence.  But  this  was  not  properly  Kant's 
opinion ;  he  wished  to  show  that  the  belief  in  God  is 
a  necessary  demand  of  our  reason,  of  our  moral  self- 
consciousness,  not  of  our  sensibility.  Underlying  his 
deduction  there  was  concealed  the  deeper  thought 
(which  appears  more  distinctly  in  his  '  Critique  of  the 
Judgment')  that  we  feel  ourselves  bound  as  moral 
beings  to  a  moral  world-order,  which  is  grounded  not 
merely  in  us  but  in  God,  and  that  the  whole  course  of 
the  world  in  nature  and  history  is  the  means  arranged 
by  God  for  the  fulfilment  of  our  moral  final  end.  This 
thousiht  formed  thereafter  the  standing  theme  of  the 
idealistic  philosophy  which  followed  that  of  Kant. 

By  this  moral  issue  Kant  also  made  the  specific 
Christian  doctrines  of  sin  and  redemption  more  intel- 
ligible than  the  earlier  rationalism  had  done.  Although 
he  did  not  yet  reach  the  full  sense  of  these  doctrines, 
he  interpreted  them  as  moral  allegories  relating  to  the 
states  of  the  moral    individual.      He   expounded  this 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

view  in  his  work  entitled  '  Religion  within  the  Limits 
of  mere  Eeason/  where  he  says  that  at  the  beginning 
there  rules  in  every  one  a  radical  propensity  of  self-love 
as  the  consequence  of  an  inexplicable  intelligible  act  of 
freedom.  The  overcoming  of  this  evil  principle  can 
only  take  place  through  a  complete  revolution  of  the 
disposition,  or  a  "  regeneration,"  which  is  likewise  the 
business  of  the  individual  freedom  which  can  triumph 
over  the  evil  because  it  ought.  The  historical  Jesus 
comes  into  consideration  in  this  regard  only  as  an  illus- 
trating example  of  the  moral  ideal.  The  proper  object 
of  faith,  however,  is  not  anything  historical,  but  the 
moral  idea  of  man  which  is  grounded  in  our  reason. 
Whoever  recognises  this  ideal,  and  makes  it  his  su- 
preme principle,  is  just  before  God  in  spite  of  defects 
in  his  individual  acts.  His  earlier  trespasses  are  also 
made  up  for,  not  indeed  by  a  vicarious  suffering  on  the 
part  of  another,  but  really  by  this,  that  the  new  man 
in  ourselves  continually  suffers,  as  it  were,  vicariously 
for  the  old  man,  who  alone  had  deserved  the  suffering. 

It  was  certainly  an  important  step  in  advance  when 
Kant  strove  to  find  a  rational  moral  meaning,  not  only 
in  the  faith  in  God,  but  also  in  the  ecclesiastical  doc- 
trine of  redemption.  But  what  still  prevented  him 
from  penetrating  into  the  full  sense  of  this  cardinal 
Christian  doctrine  was  the  individualism  which  he 
shared  with  his  whole  century.  He  could  think  of  the 
victory  of  the  good  over  the  evil  principle  only  as  a 

VOL.  I.  B 


18  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

process  within  the  individual  subject,  and  as  a  work  of 
the  subjective  reason  of  the  individual ;  and  he  was 
even  compelled  to  confess  that  this  process  is  inex- 
plicable as  an  act  of  the  freedom  of  the  individual. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  as  Kant  himself  had  designated 
the  good  as  the  end  of  God  in  the  world,  it  was  a  small 
step  to  seeing  that  the  victory  of  the  good  over  the  evil 
is  not  the  work  of  the  subjective  reason  of  the  individ- 
ual, but  is  the  advancing  work  of  the  universal  reason, 
or  of  the  divine  spirit  in  the  historical  humanity.  When 
the  post -Kantian  philosophy  took  this  step,  it  broke 
through  the  limits  of  the  earlier  subjective  rationalism ; 
it  awakened  the  sense  for  the  objective  reason  in  the 
great  historical  life  of  humanity ;  and  it  thereby  also 
overcame  the  opposition  between  rational  religion  and 
historical  religion. 

This  important  turn  in  the  course  of  our  philosophical 
thinking  took  place  just  about  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  the 
philosophy  of  Fichte.  After  this  disciple  of  Kant  had 
carried  out  his  objective  idealism  with  more  logical 
sequence,  and  had  driven  it  to  the  utmost  point,  he 
recognised  the  impossibility  of  stopping  at  the  human 
Ego  as  ultimate,  and  went  back  to  the  infinite  reason, 
whose  eternal  divine  life  obtains  manifold  manifesta- 
tions in  the  whole  realm  of  finite  spirits.  With  this 
turning  round  from  subjective  to  objective,  or  absolute, 
idealism,  the  place  of  the  moral  religion  of  reason  was 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

now  taken  up  by  religious  mysticism,  which  no  longer 
postulates  a  distant  God  for  the  sporadic  supporting  of 
our  need  of  help,  but  feels  the  active  presence  of  the 
divine  spirit  in  the  heart  of  the  individual  himself.  In 
the  work  entitled  '  Guidance  to  the  Blessed  Life,'  Fichte 
described  religion  as  the  view  of  the  world  which  rises 
above  morality,  which  perceives  the  divine  life  in  all 
the  manifestations  of  the  true  and  good,  and  feels  it  in 
one's  own  self  as  the  power  of  holy  living  and  loving — 
as  a  calm  inner  mood  in  which  man  feels  himself  ani- 
mated by  God's  spirit,  and  surrenders  his  selfhood  to 
God's  will,  and  from  which  there  springs  joyous  and 
active  love  of  one's  neighbour. 

This  religion  of  the  heart,  which  Herder  had  already 
opposed  to  the  religion  of  reason,  was  made  by  Schleier- 
macher  the  theme  of  his  celebrated  '  Discourses  on 
Eeligion  to  the  Cultivated  among  its  Despisers.'  Re- 
ligion, he  showed,  is  neither  knowing  nor  doing,  neither 
metaphysics  nor  morals,  neither  dogma  nor  worship, 
but  it  is  our  pious  feeling  in  so  far  as  we  become 
conscious  in  it  of  the  connection  of  our  life  with  that 
of  the  All ;  or,  as  it  is  expressed  in  Schleiermaeher's 
System  of  Doctrine,  it  is  our  "  feeling  of  absolute 
dependence,"  in  which  we  take  ourselves  along  with  all 
else  that  is  finite,  and  refer  ourselves  to  the  one  infinite 
cause  of  the  universe.  The  doctrines  connected  with 
religion  are  secondary  products  of  reflection  about  the 
feelings,  and  means  of  expression  for  the  communica- 


20  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

tioii  of  them  to  others  ;  but  they  do  not  belong  in 
themselves  to  the  essence  of  religion.  According  to 
Schleiermacher's  opinion,  one  may  have  much  religion 
without  needing  the  conceptions  "  miracle,  inspiration, 
and  revelation " ;  but  whoever  reflects  upon  his  relig- 
ion inevitably  finds  these  conceptions  upon  his  way. 
Hence  they  have  an  unlimited  right  in  religion,  but 
also  only  as  religious  expressions  for  subjective  states 
of  the  soul,  without  their  significance  being  entitled  to 
be  extended  to  the  sphere  of  knowing,  or  moral  acting. 
Schleiermacher  likewise  believed  that  as  regards  the 
conceptions  "  God  "  and  "  Immortality,"  the  very  same 
holds  good  as  of  all  religious  conceptions  and  doctrines : 
that  their  theoretical  apprehension  is  not  of  such  essen- 
tial significance  for  religion  as  is  usually  supposed. 
The  main  thing,  according  to  him,  is  that  one  should 
live  at  all  times  in  the  eternal  and  have  God  in  his 
feeling,  wdiatever  view  may  be  entertained  regarding 
the  immortality  of  the  future,  and  regarding  the  per- 
sonality or  impersonality  of  God.  Actions  do  no  more 
immediately  belong  to  religion  than  do  conceptions  and 
doctrines ;  religion  much  rather  invites  one  to  a  quiet 
passive  enjoyment  than  incites  to  outward  activity. 
Feelings  and  actions  form  two  series,  proceeding  side 
by  side  with  each  other ;  nothing  is  to  be  done  from 
religion,  but  everything  vnth  religion ;  the  religious 
feelings  ought  to  accompany  the  active  life  uninter- 
ruptedly, like  a  holy  music. 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

Notwithstanding  the  one-sidedness  of  this  theory, 
which  wonkl  make  faith  the  one  and  all  in  religion, 
and  in  which  the  influences  of  the  then  dominating 
romanticism  betray  themselves,  yet  its  epoch-making 
significance  for  the  science  of  religion  and  theology  is 
not  to  be  underestimated.  Schleiermacher,  by  making 
religion  in  general,  and  Christianity  in  particular,  to 
be  understood  as  a  mode  of  feeling  or  as  a  fact  of  the 
inner  experience,  removed  the  grounds  of  the  conflict 
between  the  supra  -  naturalists  and  the  rationalists 
regarding  the  derivation  of  the  dogmatic  propositions 
— namely,  as  to  whether  they  are  derived  from  reason 
or  from  revelation.  He  set  himself  in  opposition  to 
the  supra-naturalists,  by  apprehending  the  Christian 
faith  not  as  a  doctrine  founded  upon  external  author- 
ity, but  as  an  inner  determination  of  our  own  self- 
consciousness,  which  must  stand  in  connection  and 
harmony  with  the  other  contents  of  our  rational  con- 
sciousness ;  and  therewith  Schleiermacher  also  intro- 
duced into  theology  the  fundamental  thought  of 
idealism,  that  the  mind  is  able  to  recognise  as  truth 
only  that  in  which  it  finds  its  own  nature  again.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  opposed  to  the  rationalists  the  view- 
that  the  Christian  faith  is  not  a  product  of  rational 
reflection,  but  is  a  modification  of  the  soul,  a  feeling 
which  is  given  before  thinking  and  independent  of  it, 
and  indeed  as  a  fact  not  merely  of  individual  experi- 
ence, but  of  the  common  experience  of  the  historical 


22  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

community  which  is  called  the  Christian  Church.  All 
Christian  doctrines  will  only  be  descriptions  of  the 
common  feeling  of  Christendom,  which  is  determined 
by  the  opposition  of  sin  and  redemption,  or  of  the 
restraint  and  liberation  of  the  God  -  consciousness. 
Eedemption  is  therefore,  according  to  Schleiermacher, 
as  well  as  according  to  Kant,  not  a  single  miraculous 
process  that  occurred  once  for  all  in  the  past,  but  it 
is  the  inner  experience  of  the  victory  of  the  spirit 
over  the  flesh — of  the  advancing,  strengthening  divine 
principle  in  man — which  is  repeated  again  and  again  in 
the  pious.  But  this  experience  has  its  active  ground, 
not  in  the  freedom  of  the  individual,  as  Kant  would 
have  it,  l^ut  in  the  common  spirit  of  the  Christian 
community,  which  has  proceeded  from  the  historical 
personality  of  Jesus,  the  founder  of  the  community. 
Thus  did  Schleiermacher  connect  again  the  bonds 
between  the  subject  and  historical  Christianity,  which 
had  been  torn  asunder  by  Kant.  Instead  of  shutting 
up  religion  "  within  the  limits  of  mere  (subjective) 
reason,"  he  put  it  into  the  universal  connection  of  the 
whole  life  of  humanity,  and  sought  to  comprehend  it  as 
the  product  of  the  objective  reason  in  history. 

Schleiermacher,  however,  did  not  yet  carry  out  logi- 
cally the  fruitful  thought  of  the  "development"  of 
religion,  seeing  that  he  removed  the  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity to  a  position  above  the  plane  on  which  the 
historical  humanity  moves,  and  he  carried  him  back 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

to  a  miraculous  origin,  thereby  opening  to  supra- 
naturalism  the  entrance  anew  into  the  system  of 
doctrine.  This  defect  was  amended  and  corrected  by 
the  Hegelian  philosophy  of  religion.  The  strength  and 
merit  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy  lay  in  this,  that  it 
applied  the  idealism  of  the  Kantian  subjective  philoso- 
phy to  the  historical  life  of  humanity,  and  has  under- 
stood that  life  in  the  light  of  a  development  of  the 
spirit  in  conformity  with  law.  Thereby  this  philosophy 
made  an  immense  impression  upon  its  contemporaries, 
who  believed  they  found  in  it  the  word  that  solved  all 
riddles.  In  this  celebrated  proposition  of  Hegel,  "  The 
rational  is  actual,  and  the  actual  is  rational,"  there  was 
expressed  an  optimistic  belief  in  the  rational  sense  and 
the  purposeful  meaning  of  the  history  of  the  world — a 
belief  which  was  a  perfect  consolation  to  a  generation 
that  was  weary  of  conflict,  and  which  was,  at  the  same 
time,  a  wholesome  medicine  for  its  idealistic  extrava- 
gance. Hegel  recalled  his  contemporaries  from  the 
Utopias  of  the  golden  ages  in  the  past  and  future,  in 
which  the  Eousseaus,  Herders,  and  Kants  had  revelled, 
to  the  solid  ground  of  the  historical  life  ;  and  he  showed 
them  that  undreamed-of  treasures  of  rational  ideas  and 
of  impelling  and  active  ideals  here  presented  themselves 
to  the  eye  that  was  lovingly  turned  in  that  direction. 
He  showed  them  how  the  reason  that  governs  the 
world  had  been  able  to  carry  through  its  sublime  pur- 
poses in  every  age  and  in  the  case  of  every  people, 


24  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

although  half  unknown  to  men  themselves;  and  how 
even  the  defects  and  evils  of  every  time  had  been  only 
the  necessary  means  of  carrying  forward  the  stage  that 
had  been  reached  to  a  still  higher  and  richer  develop- 
ment of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  peoples  and  of  humanity. 
Thereby  a  knowledge  of  history  was  gained  which  far 
excelled  all  that  had  been  hitherto  reached  in  im- 
partiality and  justice  of  judgment,  and  in  comprehen- 
sion of  the  connection  of  the  individual  and  the  whole 
— in  short,  in  rational  objectivity  ;  and  this  view  super- 
seded the  rationalistic  pragmatism  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  by  substituting  for  it  a  truly  historical  method. 
This  thoughtful  view  of  history  was  fraught  with 
special  advantage  to  the  history  of  religion  and  to  the 
Church.  Hegel  recognised  in  this  history  a  regular 
development  of  the  divine  revelation  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness of  God,  a  development  in  which  no  point  is 
entirely  without  truth,  yet  in  which  no  one  point  is  the 
whole  truth,  but  in  which  the  divine  truth  gradually 
unveils  itself  more  purely,  more  spiritually,  and  more 
clearly  to  the  human  consciousness.  The  historical 
religions  are  accordingly  neither  inventions  of  human 
arbitrariness  nor  the  expression  of  the  accidental  feel- 
ings of  pious  souls,  but  are  the  necessary  products  of 
the  specific  common  spirit  of  the  peoples,  in  the  same 
way  as  are  law  and  morals,  art  and  science ;  and  they 
are,  therefore,  likewise  only  to  be  understood  in  closest 
connection  with  the  universal  history  of  civilisation  and 


INTRODUCTION.  25 

culture.  Christianity,  however,  according  to  Hegel,  is 
"  the  absolute  religion,"  because  in  it  the  truth  of  God 
as  the  Spirit  has  become  manifest  and  revealed ;  man 
has  become  conscious  of  the  presence  of  God  in  his 
spirit,  and  has  thereby  come  to  his  true  freedom  in 
God.  Moreover,  the  process  of  the  evolution  of  the 
religious  spirit  goes  further  within  Christianity ;  be- 
cause its  true  essence  can  only  be  realised  gradu- 
ally and  in  constant  conflict  with  half-truth  and  one- 
sided apprehension  of  truth.  To  show  this  teleological 
rationality  in  the  history  of  religion,  and  to  overcome 
thereby  the  proud  subjectivism  of  the  period  of  en- 
lightenment which  had  set  itself  above  the  historical 
by  its  utter  lack  of  understanding  and  piety — this  was 
the  intention  and  the  merit  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy 
of  religion.  But  its  defect  was  its  one-sided  intellect- 
ualism, — its  mistaking  the  fact  that  religion  is  not,  like 
philosophy,  a  thing  of  the  thinking  but  of  the  emotional 
spirit,  and  that  even  thoughts  only  obtain  religious 
significance  by  their  exciting  feeling  and  will,  by  their 
determining  the  disposition  of  the  whole  man,  and  by 
giving  themselves  abiding  expression  in  his  moral 
character.  So  far,  Hegel's  religion  of  reason  needed 
correction  by  the  religion  of  the  heart  as  expounded 
by  Fichte  and  Schleiermacher. 

It  is  just  this  combination  of  Hegel's  historical  evolu- 
tionism with  Fichte's  ethical  idealism  that  is  represented 
in  a  classical  way  by  your  gifted  countryman  Thomas 


26  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Carlyle.  He  was  one  of  the  freest  spirits  of  our  time  ; 
his  keen  critical  understanding  bowed  down  before  no 
external  authority,  no  traditional  system  of  belief.  In 
the  dogmas  and  rites  of  all  the  Churches  he  recognised 
the  natural  products  of  the  historical  stage  of  culture 
reached  by  the  peoples ;  to  him  they  were  the  symbols 
in  which  the  eternal  idea  must  clothe  itself  for  the 
consciousness  of  every  age.  But  as  is  the  case  with  all 
that  is  historical,  much  must  also  again  become  an- 
tiquated when  the  growth  of  time  has  gone  beyond 
them.  In  his  fundamental  aversion  to  all  religious 
formalism,  to  overestimation  of  what  is  statutory  and 
conventional,  and  to  all  ecclesiastical  form  and  sham, 
he  may  appear  at  first  sight  as  a  radical  sceptic,  as 
a  second  David  Hume.  And  yet  no  one  was  further 
from  the  empty  scepticism  of  the  cold  understanding 
than  Thomas  Carlyle,  whose  soul  glowed  with  en- 
thusiasm for  the  true  and  good,  who  bowed  in  rever- 
ence before  the  great  personalities  of  history,  in  whom 
he  recognised  prophets  of  the  true  and  heroes  of  the 
good.  To  deny  and  combat  what  is  false,  to  believe 
and  to  honour  what  is  true,  as  that  in  which  the 
eternal  God  reveals  Himself  to  us, — this  was  Carlyle's 
element  of  life ;  it  was  his  religion.  Has  not  this 
pathos  of  moral  idealism  the  closest  affinity  with  re- 
ligious enthusiasm,  with  the  courage  that  sustains  the 
conflicts  and  sacrifices  of  the  Eeformers  ?  In  fact, 
Thomas    Carlyle's    character   appears   to   stand   much 


INTRODUCTION.  27 

nearer  that  of  John  Knox  than  that  of  David  Hume  ; 
or  rather  it  may  be  said  that  Thomas  Carlyle  united 
in  himself  the  religious  reverence  of  the  Eeformer 
with  the  intellectual  clearness  of  the  modern  thinker 
who  does  not  fear  even  the  sharp  edge  of  criticism, 
because  he  knows  that  it  is  the  indispensable  means  of 
penetrating  from  what  merely  seems  true  to  what  is 
genuinely  true. 

In  the  spirit  of  Carlyle,  which  combines  the  courage 
of  the  thinker  in  the  cause  of  truth  with  the  reverence 
of  faith.  Lord  Gifford,  the  estimable  founder  of  the 
Lectureship  which  has  brought  us  together  here, 
wished  to  see  the  question  of  religion  treated.  And 
I  do  not  know  how  they  could  be  otherwise  treated 
successfully.  The  more  we  are  filled  with  a  sense  of 
the  incomparable  worth  of  religion,  and  especially  of 
our  Christian  faith,  so  much  the  more  must  we  feel 
it  to  be  incumbent  upon  us  to  overcome  the  impedi- 
ments which  have  sprung  up  in  the  way  of  the  faith 
from  the  scientific  view  of  the  world  of  the  present 
day.  For  this  end  it  is  necessary  to  show  that  the 
doubts  of  the  thinking  mind  do  not  affect  the  essence  of 
the  Christian  faith,  but  apply  only  to  the  forms  in 
which  earlier  generations  have  set  forth  this  faith, — 
forms  which  sprang  from  and  corresponded  to  the 
state  of  culture  and  the  philosophy  of  former  ages, 
but  which  on  that  very  account  cannot  be  any  longer 
sufficient  and  authoritative  for  the  advanced  knowledge 


28  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

of  our  time.  It  will  be  a  part  of  the  task  of  these 
Lectures  to  show  how  these  forms  of  faith  have  taken 
shape  and  developed  themselves  in  the  course  of  the 
ages,  what  they  signify,  and  what  religious  truths 
they  would  symbolically  express.  First  of  all,  how- 
ever, we  shall  have  to  make  intelligible  what  the 
essence  of  Religion  is,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  these 
changing  forms  of  the  doctrines  of  religion.  But  in 
thus  proceeding  we  shall  not  fall  back  again  into  the 
error  of  the  old  rationalism — namely,  of  seeking  the 
essence  of  religion  in  its  initial  state,  or  in  a  so-called 
"  Natural  Eeligion,"  which  was  held  to  consist  in  cer- 
tain presumably  rational  universal  truths,  but  which 
in  truth  are  only  abstract  and  colourless  conceptions. 
David  Hume,  as  has  already  been  observed,  irrefutably 
showed  that  there  has  never  been  such  a  natural 
relio'ion  of  reason  ;  but  irrational  passions  of  the 
heart  and  fictions  of  the  imagination  were  recognised 
by  him  as  forming  the  beginning  of  religion,  and  the 
historical  investigations  since  his  time  have  always 
only  more  confirmed  this  view.  But  from  the  fact 
that  the  condition  of  religion  at  the  beginning  of  its 
history  was  everywhere  more  or  less  irrational  and 
pathological,  is  the  inference  at  all  to  be  justified  that 
the  essence  of  religion  also  consists  in  irrational  wishes 
and  dreams  ?  Such  a  conclusion  could  only  be  held  to 
be  correct  by  one  who  had  taken  no  notice  of  the 
great  thought  which  gives  the  whole  science  of  nature 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

and  history  in  the  nineteenth  century  its  proper  and 
specifically  distinguishing  characteristic  in  contrast  to 
the  enlightenment  of  the  eighteenth  century— namely, 
the  thought  of  development. 

"We  know  that  every  living  thing  unfolds  its  essential 
nature  only  in  the  whole  course  of  its  life,  and  hence 
that  its  state  at  the  beginning  least  enables  us  to 
obtain  a  knowledge  of  its  real  nature.  Whoever  would 
describe  the  essence  of  the  oak,  will  not  derive  its 
marks  from  the  acorn,  but  from  the  full-grown  tree; 
and  whoever  would  obtain  a  knowledge  of  the  essence 
of  man,  will  not  limit  himself  to  the  observation  of 
the  infant,  nor  will  he  choose  as  his  models  the  savages 
who  are  to  be  found  in  the  crude  state  of  nature.  On 
the  contrary,  he  will  give  heed  to  what  the  human 
race  has  developed  itself  into  in  the  course  of  thou- 
sands of  years;  and  in  the  highest  representatives  of 
the  moral  and  intellectual  culture  of  man  he  will  find 
the  criterion  by  which  to  judge  of  what  the  human 
species  is  by  its  constitution,  or  what  its  essence  con- 
tains in  itself.  In  like  manner,  the  political  philoso- 
pher who  would  determine  the  essence  of  the  State 
will  no  doubt  cherish  a  historical  interest  in  the  first 
beginnings  of  the  historical  organisation  of  humanity, 
but  he  will  guard  himself  against  defining  the  con- 
ception of  the  State,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  according 
to  its  first  crude  beginnings  ;  nor  will  he  derive  the 
facts  of  moral  right  and  the  function  of  the  State  from 


30  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  mode  of  its  historical  origin,  but  rather  from  the 
conditions  and  demands  of  our  rational  spirit,  which 
has  attained  to  clearness  regarding  itself  by  historical 
experience.  The  same  holds  good  of  Eeligion :  its 
essence  is  least  of  all  to  be  recognised  in  its  historical 
beginnings;  it  reveals  itself  only  through  its  actual- 
isation  in  the  course  of  its  historical  development,  and 
most  distinctly  on  the  highest  culminating  point  of 
that  development,  in  Christianity.  Only  in  so  far  as 
we  give  heed  to  the  sum  of  the  religious  experiences 
of  humanity  as  they  culminate  in  Christianity,  shall 
we  be  in  a  position  for  understanding  objectively  the 
essence  of  religion ;  and  if  we  were  to  turn  away  from 
history,  the  great  teacher ,  in  this  sphere,  we  should 
not  get  beyond  arbitrary  hypotheses  and  empty  ab- 
stractions. 

Assuredly  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  even  Chris- 
tianity as  a  historical  phenomenon  is  not  a  simple 
quantity,  but  a  very  complicated  whole,  composed  of 
the  most  manifold  elements.  Thus  the  question  im- 
mediately arises.  Which  of  these  manifold  elements 
are  essentially  religious,  and  which  of  them  belong 
not  to  the  essence  of  religion  but  to  its  more  outward 
vestment,  and  even  to  its  deformations  ?  Or  in  other 
words.  In  what  features  of  Christianity  is  religion  pre- 
sented to  us  in  its  purest  and  most  valuable  develop- 
ment, and  in  which  as  less  pure  and  less  valuable  ? 


INTRODUCTION.  31 

Now  it  is  clear  that  the  relative  value  of  individual 
historical  appearances  is  only  capable  of  being  judged 
by  reference  to  a  universal  principle,  which  contains 
the  ground  and  law  of  all  that  is  particular.  If,  then, 
religion  is  a  universally  human  phenomenon,  its  prin- 
ciple can  only  lie  in  the  universal  essence  of  man, 
in  what  distinguishes  him  from  the  lower  animals, 
and  therefore  in  his  rational  endowment.  The  prin- 
ciple of  religion  cannot  consist  in  individual  rational 
judgments,  propositions,  or  doctrines,  as  was  main- 
tained by  the  old  rationalism,  but  must  consist  as- 
suredly in  reason  itself.  It  will  be  the  task  of  the 
next  following  Lectures  to  show  that  reason  is  so 
constituted  in  us  that  the  consciousness  of  God  nec- 
essarily proceeds  out  of  its  normal  function,  and  to 
explain  what  position  this  consciousness  occupies  in 
the  whole  of  our  spiritual  life  in  relation  to  its  other 
functions.  To-day  it  will  only  be  possible  to  indicate 
in  an  introductory  outline  of  our  views  the  leading 
fundamental  thoughts,  the  further  exposition  and  estab- 
lishment of  which  will  have  to  occupy  us  in  the  later 
lectures  of  this  course. 

Eeason  is  the  synthetic  thinking  which  arranges  the 
manifold  contents  of  consciousness  by  reference  to  the 
unity  of  the  Ego.  As  theoretical  reason,  it  arranges 
the  mental  representations ;  as  practical  reason,  the 
appetencies  and  desires.     The  harmonious  ordering  of 


32  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  representations  is  the  Idea  of  the  true ;  that  of  the 
desires  is  the  Idea  of  the  good.  Xow,  since  reason  as 
theoretical  and  as  practical  is  one  and  the  same  reason, 
it  must  strive  after  a  supreme  unity  which  compre- 
hends under  itself  the  Ideas  of  the  true  and  good ;  and 
this  is  the  Idea  of  God.  It  is  only  through  reference 
to  the  Idea  of  God  that  the  Ideas  of  the  true  and  good 
receive  their  full  objective  significance.  For,  as  our 
representations  of  things  in  themselves  or  of  the  world, 
their  ordering  in  our  consciousness  can  only  be  effectu- 
ated under  the  supposition  that  the  world  of  things  is 
likewise  subject  to  a  similar  order,  or  is  arranged  by 
a  reason  similar  to  ours.  The  truth  of  our  rational 
thinking  thus  assumes  the  truth  of  the  rational  order 
of  the  world — that  is,  of  God.  And  seeing  that  the 
desires  of  each  individual  are  conditioned  by  those  of 
other  men,  and  also  by  the  nature  of  things,  the  har- 
monious order  of  the  desires  in  the  individual  con- 
sciousness is  only  to  be  attained  under  the  assumption 
that  the  same  ordering  principle  also  rules  in  other 
men  and  in  nature ;  and  thus  the  realisability  of  the 
Idea  of  the  good  presupposes  the  reality  of  the  moral 
order  of  the  world,  or  of  God.  The  Idea  of  God,  there- 
fore, contains  not  merely  the  finishing  unity  or  highest 
synthesis  of  the  contents  of  consciousness  within  the 
subject,  but  also  its  unity  with  the  trans-subjective  or 
objective  world  of  the  real ;  it  guarantees  the  objective 


INTRODUCTION.  33 

tratli  of  our  rational  thinking,  and  the  objective  realis- 
ability  of  our  rational  willing. 

To  the  two  sides  of  the  Idea  of  God,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
the  principle  of  the  true  and  the  good,  or  the  highest 
law  of  being  and  of  the  being  that  ought  to  be,  there 
also  correspond  the  two  sides  which  we  have  to  dis- 
tinguish in  religion  as  the  practical  relation  of  man  to 
the  Idea  of  God.  The  fundamental  feeling  of  religion 
is  best  expressed  in  the  words  of  Goethe, — 

"  Small  do  I  feel  myself  within  the  infinitely  great." 

This  is  the  feeling  of  finiteness  and  limitedness,  of 
dependence  on  an  infinitely  superior  power,  against 
which  we  can  do  nothing,  and  by  which  our  existence 
and  our  weal  and  woe  are  conditioned.  But  the 
religious  feeling  is  not  a  mere  feeling  of  dependence ; 
it  is  not  a  slavish  fear  of  an  extraneous  mysterious 
power :  where  it  thus  appears  we  judge  it  to  be  a 
deformity  or  malformation,  a  crudeness  or  degeneration 
of  the  religious  feeling.  Already  by  the  very  fact  that 
we  know  our  dependence,  or  our  limit,  we  are  in  a 
certain  sense  above  it;  when  we  make  the  infinite 
power  on. which  we  feel  ourselves  dependent  the  object 
of  our  thinking,  it  appears  no  longer  as  entirely  strange, 
but  as  related  to  ourselves,  as  a  spiritual  power,  as  the 
ordering  principle  of  all  that  is  capable  of  being  known 
by  us  of  the  laws,  purpose,  and  beauty  of  the  world, 
VOL.  I.  c 


34  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  as  what  excites  our  wonder  and  reverence.  Rever- 
ence is  the  feeling  of  dependence  on  one  who  is  such 
that  we  feel  ourselves  at  the  same  time  sympathetically 
drawn  to  him ;  and  thus  it  leads  over  to  the  other  side 
of  religion.  In  so  far  as  we  see  in  God  the  good,  or 
the  ideal  of  our  true  willing,  He  is  the  goal  of  the 
longing  of  our  freedom,  which  can  only  be  released 
from  the  pressure  of  the  finite  in  that  it  raises  itself 
from  all  limited  and  divided  willing  to  the  one  per- 
fect and  harmonious  willing  of  the  whole,  in  order  to 
realise  and  satisfy  itself  in  surrender  to  it.  From  the 
beginning,  mankind  have  seen  in  the  divine  not  merely 
the  power  on  which  they  feel  themselves  dependent, 
but  at  the  same  time  the  ideal  goal  of  their  longing, 
the  ideal  of  their  imperfect  being,  the  perfect  fulfilment 
of  their  highest  hopes,  the  source  of  their  blessedness. 
Thus,  in  the  religious  feeling  there  comes  to  be  added 
to  the  depressing  feeling  of  dependence,  elevating 
trust  and  free  self-surrendering  love.  The  feeling  of 
dependence,  however,  is  not  thereby  in  any  way 
abolished,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  only  then  truly 
becomes  morally  deepened.  For,  when  man  comes  to 
know  God  as  the  good,  as  the  ideal  of  true  willing, 
he  feels  himself  not  merely  dependent  in  his  being 
on  divine  power,  but  also  bound  in  his  willing  to  the 
divine  will,  and  under  obligation  to  obey  and  serve  it; 
he  recognises  in  the  purpose  of  God,  or  in  the  universal 


INTRODUCTION.  35 

good,  the  regulating  rule  of  authority  for  his  conduct 
and  his  judgment  of  himself.  And  when  he  now 
recognises  the  distance  of  his  being  from  this  sublime 
obligation,  the  humble  feeling  of  human  weakness 
becomes  a  painful  feeling  of  guilt  and  unworthiness. 
But  out  of  this  deepest  humiliation  there  springs  up 
again  the  highest  elevation  —  namely,  the  desire  for 
liberation,  not  merely  from  the  pressure  of  the  finite 
world  and  its  evils,  but  still  more  from  the  dividedness 
of  one's  own  being,  from  the  pain  of  the  feeling  of 
guilt,  and  from  the  weakness  of  the  will  to  do  good. 
This  moral  yearning  for  freedom  reaches  its  fulfilment 
in  the  full  moral  surrender  of  the  individual's  own 
will  to  the  divine  will  of  goodness.  In  obedience  to 
God  man  finds  his  true  freedom ;  out  of  the  humility 
which  overcomes  itself  there  grows  the  courage  of  the 
trust  which  overcomes  the  world.  The  more,  in  any 
religion,  these  two  sides  of  humility  and  trust,  sur- 
render and  elevation,  dependence  and  freedom,  come 
to  full  and  harmonious  realisation,  so  much  the  more 
does  it  correspond  to  the  essence  of  religion,  and  so 
much  the  more  does  it  realise  fellowship  with  its 
infinite  ideal  implanted  in  the  essence  of  the  human 
spirit.  In  this  we  have  the  criterion  by  which  we  are 
able  to  estimate  the  relative  value  of  the  historical 
religions,  and  by  which  we  can  understand  the  law 
of  their  teleological  development.     Hence  we  shall  no 


36  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

longer  seek  "  natural  religion  "  in  the  rude  beginnings 
of  history,  and  just  as  little  in  meagre  abstractions 
from  actual  religion,  which  have  never  been  actual ; 
but  we  shall  find  them  where  religion  has  historically 
unveiled  its  true  nature,  as  it  alone  corresponds  to  the 
essence  of  man — namely,  in  Christianity. 


LECTUEE    11. 


EELIGION   AND   MORALITY, 


The  assertion  now  often  heard  that  EeHgion  and  Mor- 
ality stood  originally  in  no  connection  with  each  other, 
is  an  error  which  arises  from  a  false  way  of  putting  the 
question.  Our  present  moral  convictions  are  taken  as 
a  standard,  and  it  is  asked  whether  the  oldest  repre- 
sentations of  the  gods  correspond  to  our  moral  ideals, 
and  whether  the  duties  required  at  the  first  by  religion 
correspond  to  our  conception  of  duty  ?  As,  of  course, 
there  is  no  such  correspondence  in  these  cases,  it  is 
believed  that  any  original  connection  between  morality 
and  religion  must  be  denied.  In  maintaining  this 
view,  it  is  forgotten  that  the  primitive  morality  is  just 
as  different  from  our  morality  as  the  primitive  religion 
is  from  our  religion.  But  it  is  an  incontestable  fact 
that  the  primitive  morality  stands  in  very  close  connec- 
tion with  the  primitive  religion,  and  indeed  that  the 
besinnino-s  of  all  social  customs  and  legal  ordinances 


38  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

are  directly  derived  from  religious  notions  and  cere- 
monial practices. 

The  family  is  the  oldest  religious  community,  and 
only  as  such  did  it  become  a  moral  fellowship.  The 
worship  of  the  house-gods  or  of  ancestral  spirits  was 
the  ideal  bond  which  connected  the  members  of  the 
household  into  a  lasting  fellowship  regulated  by  fixed 
rules.  By  the  entrance  of  the  wife  into  community 
of  worship  with  the  husband,  marriage  became  sanc- 
tioned— that  is,  it  was  elevated  from  a  mere  natural 
relationship  to  a  moral  relationship,  with  lasting  duties 
and  rights.  The  paternal  authority  had  its  ground, 
as  well  as  its  limit,  in  the  religious  position  of  the 
father  of  the  family  as  the  performer  of  the  rites  of 
domestic  worship.  The  inalienability  of  the  family 
property  also  rested  on  a  religious  sanction ;  for  it 
was  not  the  present  living  members  of  the  family  who 
were  regarded  as  the  legal  possessors  of  this  property, 
but  it  belonged  to  the  house-god,  who  represented  the 
enduring  unity  of  the  family.  The  generations  of  the 
family  had  only  the  usufruct  of  the  property.  Again, 
because  the  religion  of  the  primitive  period  was  limited 
to  the  worship  of  the  house-gods,  the  circle  of  moral 
obligation  was  likewise  still  limited  to  the  family ; 
but  within  these  narrow  limits  the  religious  faith 
operated  as  the  motive  of  moral  feelings.  As  the 
members  of  the  family  felt  themselves  bound  together 
by  the  powerful  bond  of  their  belonging  to  the  same 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  39 

house-deity,  they  learned  mutually  to  esteem  and  love 
each   other.      Their   natural   inclinations   and   mutual 
need  of  help  thus  received  the  higher  consecration  of 
piety  through  the  religious  idea.     Thus  the  foundation 
of  morality  was  laid  primarily  in  the  narrowest  circle 
by    the    rehgious    sanction.      The    expansion    of    this 
narrowest  social   combination   into  the  form  of   civil 
society  followed  hand  in  hand  with  the  expansion  of 
the  religious  ideas  and  usages.      As  the  members  of 
the   family   assembled   around   the    household    hearth 
and  invited  the  house-gods,  by  oblations  and  invoca- 
tion, to  the  common  meal,  so  the  community  of  the 
city  was  the  union  of  those  who  honoured  the  same 
protecting  deities  of  the  city  at  the  same  altars  and 
through    the    common    sacrificial    meal.      What   from 
the  beginning  formed  the  bond  of   civil  society  was 
not  interest,  nor  an  arbitrary  contract,  nor  an  acci- 
dental   custom ;    but    it    was    the    sacred    repast    in 
presence  of  the  gods  of  the  city,  that  symbol  of  an 
inner  union  of  all  the  individual  citizens  bound   by 
their    common    obligation    to    an    ideal    principle,    a 
super  -  sensible    obligatory    power.      Like    the    house 
government  of  the  paternal  power,  the  civil  govern- 
ment was  originally  an  efflux  of  religion,  and  not  a 
product   of    force   nor    of    free    compact.      The   royal 
power  and  authority  were  also  originally  derived  from 
the  worship  of  the  public  altars,  and  hence  the  kings 
were   called  'lepol,   Aioyevel^.      The   oldest   laws   and 


40  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

legislative  assemblies  were  referred  by  all  the  peoples 
back  to  divine  revelation — a  correct  reminiscence  of 
the  fact  that  they  had  not  arisen  from  arbitrary 
invention  or  agreement,  but  were  regarded  as  the 
expression  of  religious  convictions,  whose  involuntary 
presuppositions  were  regulative  for  the  formation  of 
the  several  relations  of  life.  The  laws,  like  the  faith 
and  worship,  were  likewise  a  sacred  tradition  indis- 
solubly  connected  with  the  holy  places  and  legends 
of  the  community  of  the  city.  Eeligion  was  mixed 
up  with  all  the  actions  of  peace  and  war.  It  regu- 
lated all  the  manners  of  the  house  and  of  the  city, 
the  meals  and  festivals,  the  assemblies  of  the  people 
and  the  tribunals  of  justice,  the  military  expeditions 
and  the  conclusions  of  peace, — all  these  stood  in  the 
closest  relation  with  the  religious  presuppositions  and 
purposes.  The  moral  was  not  yet  distinguished  from 
the  religious. 

As  religious  motives  lay  at  the  basis  of  morals  and 
morality  from  the  beginning  of  civilisation,  these  again 
reacted  so  as  to  ennoble  religion.  It  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  religion,  in  order  to  work  as  a  morally 
educative  power,  must  have  contained  from  the  begin- 
ning ideal  notions  of  the  nature  of  the  Deity.  This 
was  impossible :  for  whence  could  men  have  obtained  a 
knowledge  of  moral  Ideals  before  they  had  themselves 
come  to  the  elements  of  social  morality  and  practice  ? 
It  was  at  first  also  much  less  important  what  idea  was 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  41 

formed  of  the  nature  of  the  gods,  rather  than  that  the 
social  groups  should  feel  themselves  combined  through 
the  honouring  of  certain  higher  powers,  and  that  they 
should  have  in  this  common  consciousness  of  a  higher 
obligation  a  regulating  principle  of  their  common  life 
with  each  other.  But  after  social  customs  and  ordi- 
nances had  settled  themselves  under  the  influence  of 
this  religious  motive,  and  certain  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  right  and  wrong  had  been  developed,  it  was 
then  natural  that  they  should  see  in  the  Deity  the 
Guardian  of  the  social  order  willed  by  him,  and  con- 
sequently the  avenger  of  every  wrong,  including  civil 
crimes,  and  not  merely  the  religious  trespass  in  the 
narrower  sense.  But  when  the  gods  came  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  representatives  and  guardians  of  the 
sacred  order  of  justice,  the  further  consequence  could 
not  but  follow  that  a  corresponding  sentiment  should 
be  attributed  to  them,  and  that  they  should  be  thought 
of  as  friends,  promoters,  and  examples  of  all  that  was 
regarded  by  their  worshippers  as  good  and  noble.  Thus 
was  formed  the  conception  of  the  gods  as  moral  ideals, 
and  this  conception  again  reacted  upon  the  moral  con- 
sciousness out  of  which  it  had  grown  so  as  to  strengthen 
it.  There  was  therefore  found  from  the  beginning  a 
relationship  of  closest  reciprocity  between  the  religious 
and  the  moral ;  and  the  development  of  the  two  sides 
proceeded  for  a  long  time  pari  i^assu,  and  under  the 
reciprocal  influence  of  the  one  upon  the  other. 


42  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

In  the  course  of  time,  however,  this  immediate  uni- 
ty of  religion  and  morality  must  necessarily  become 
looser  and  be  dissolved.  A  conservative  characteristic 
belongs  to  religion ;  it  clings  to  the  traditional  which 
is  held  by  it  as  sacred  and  revealed  by  the  Deity. 
Morality,  on  the  other  hand,  advances  unceasingly  for- 
wards ;  its  circles  widen ;  the  wants  of  life  become 
more  numerous  ;  with  the  advancing  division  of  labour 
society  becomes  organised  more  distinguishably,  the 
contrast  of  the  different  classes  becomes  greater  ;  and 
the  legal  relationships  become  more  complicated.  Then 
the  old  morals  and  dogmas  transmitted  under  religious 
sanctions  no  longer  apply ;  they  are  found  to  be  ad- 
verse to  their  jDurpose,  and  to  be  a  hindrance  to  the 
rational  order  of  society.  The  sceptical  understanding 
assumes  an  attitude  of  opposition  to  their  supposed 
origin  in  divine  revelation  when  it  comes  to  reflect 
upon  the  difference  between  the  manners  and  laws  of 
the  several  peoples,  and  from  this  it  draws  the  infer- 
ence of  their  human  origin.  Thus  a  breach  arises 
between  the  traditional  religion  of  the  people  and  the 
moral  consciousness,  first  in  the  case  of  individuals, 
and  then  gradually  of  whole  generations.  The  moral 
thus  loosens  itself  from  the  religious  foundation  which 
it  had  at  first,  and  seeks  an  autonomous  grounding  for 
itself  in  human  nature.  So  it  was  among  the  Greeks 
in  the  time  of  the  Sophists,  who  declared  man  to  be 
the  measure  of  all  things ;  and  so  it  was  again  in  the 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  43 

modern   period   of    rationalistic    enlightenment  —  the 
period  of  the  Aufklctrung. 

But  before  we  pursue  the  different  forms  of  religion- 
less  morality,  and  examine  their  tenableness,  let  us  still 
pause  for  a  moment  to.  consider  religious  morality,  and 
notice  the  defects  which  result  from  its  immediate  de- 
pendence on  the  sanction  of  positive  religious  authori- 
ties. We  find  the  classical  examples  for  this  point  of 
view  in  the  Judaism  of  the  period  after  the  Exile,  and 
in  the  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  such  cases 
the  moral  subject  continually  remains  under  the  guar- 
dianship of  priestly  authority,  and  no  progress  is  made 
beyond  the  irresponsible  conditions  of  childhood  to  a 
proper  moral  conviction  and  free  personal  sentiments. 
The  good  is  not  known  as  what  it  is  in  itself,  as  the 
true  end  of  our  own  will ;  but  it  appears  as  the  ground- 
less arbitrary  requirement  of  an  external  will,  of  the 
God  who  has  proclaimed  His  law  through  His  ambas- 
sadors, and  who  has  impressed  its  fulfilment  by  the 
threatenings  of  punishment  and  the  promises  of  reward. 
That  the  motives  corresponding  to  this  view — namely, 
fear  of  divine  punishment  and  hope  of  divine  reward — 
only  produce  a  lower  slavish  morality,  has  been  often 
and  rightly  observed  :  but,  in  addition  to  this,  it  is  to  be 
observed  that,  upon  this  standpoint,  an  essential  under- 
standing of  the  good  according  to  its  rational  purposive 
relation  to  the  wellbeing  of  man  is  not  possible;  and 
hence,  that  all  moral  laws  are  only  to  be  accepted  on 


44  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

external  authority.  From  this  there  results  a  manifold 
train  of  evils.  Morality  is  resolved  into  a  sum  of  posi- 
tive commands  and  prohibitions  which  refer  to  indi- 
vidual actions  or  omissions  ;  and  everything  depends 
upon  these  commandments  being  punctually  observed, 
without  distinction,  for  they  have  all  the  same  divine 
sanction.  Thereby  morality  obtains  that  external  for- 
malistic  and  petty  pedantic  character,  such  as  we  know 
it  in  Phariseeism,  which  strains  out  gnats  and  swallows 
camels.  Further,  the  legislation  that  rests  upon  reli- 
gious tradition  always  requires  authorised  expounders, 
scriljes,  and  priests,  who  have  to  apply  the  laws  fixed  in 
the  sacred  letter  to  the  manifold  individual  cases  of 
conduct,  and  to  define  it  more  exactly.  Now,  as  these 
representatives  of  religious  authority  are  accustomed 
only  too  easily  to  confound  the  interests  of  their  class 
with  the  divine  will,  there  arises  from  this  a  spurious 
falsification  of  the  moral  values  of  things  by  perform- 
ances for  the  Church  and  the  Priesthood  being  placed 
above  the  fulfilment  of  the  nearest  moral  duties. 
"  Howbeit  in  vain  do  they  worship  me,  teaching  for 
doctrines  the  commandments  of  men  "  (Mark  vii.  7),  is 
the  reproach  addressed  by  Jesus  to  the  Pharisees.  The 
medieval  Church,  by  its  ascetic  contempt  of  the  world, 
especially  degraded  the  moral  orders  that  are  grounded 
in  the  nature  of  humanity,  such  as  the  family,  the  work 
of  one's  calling,  and  the  national  State,  declaring  them 
to  be  not  only  worthless,  but  even  hindrances  to  the 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  45 

eternal  salvation  of  men ;  and  it  exalted  self-mortifica- 
tion and  obedience  to  the  Church  as  the  truly  meritori- 
ous mode  of  action.  Thus,  by  the  so-called  "  super- 
natural "  morality  demanded  by  the  Church,  the  true 
natural  moral  order  of  the  world  was  repressed  and 
distorted. 

Against  this  unnaturalness,  this  compulsion  of  priestly 
guardianship,  the  sound  moral  sense  of  man  rightly  re- 
belled :  it  would  not  continue  to  be  a  mere  child  guided 
by  the  leading-strings  of  authority,  but  strove  to  attain 
to  the  free  self-determination  of  the  man.  And  in  this 
connection  it  happened  quite  naturally  that  in  the 
struggle  against  the  slavish  religious  morality  of  the 
Church,  it  was  thought  that  a  free  morality  could  only 
be  found  by  tearing  one's  self  away  from  all  religion- 
nay,  in  opposition  to  all  religion.  This  was  natural, 
for  extremes  meet;  and,  as  has  been  well  said — 

"  Fear  well  the  slave  whene'er  he  breaks  his  chain, 
But  aye  before  the  freeman  fear  is  vain." 

Is  there  not  something  of  the  passionate  bitterness  of 
the  slave  struggling  for  his  freedom  to  be  heard  even  in 
the  judgments  of  many  of  our  contemporaries  regarding 
the  emancipation  of  morality  ?  This  question  I  would 
here  raise  at  least  for  preliminary  consideration.  Before 
we  attempt  to  answer  it,  we  have  to  subject  to  examina- 
tion the  forms  and  principles  in  which  a  religionless 
secular  morality  has  grounded  and  fashioned  itself. 


46  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

In  antiquity  and  in  modern  times  there  are  found  in 
this  connection  essentially  two  chief  tendencies  which 
we  must  distinguish,  and  which  we  may  designate  as 
the  empirical  or  eudaemonistic,  and  the  idealistic  or 
rationalistic.  As  the  Greek  Cyrenaics  and  Epicureans, 
so  the  modern  Utilitarians  have  started  again  from  the 
proposition,  which  is  accepted  by  them  as  an  indubi- 
table axiom,  that  the  fundamental  impulse  of  man  is  the 
striving  after  pleasure,  and  that  from  this  impulse  all 
morality  must  be  deduced.  They  teach  that  that  is 
good  which  helps  man  to  the  greatest  possible  and  last- 
ing pleasure.  From  regard  to  lasting  pleasure  or  hap- 
piness, momentary  pleasure  must  often  be  sacrificed. 
And,  because  the  individual  is  so  closely  connected  with 
others  that  their  weal  and  woe  also  condition  his  weal 
and  woe,  every  one  cares  best  for  his  own  happiness  if 
he  also  gives  the  greatest  possible  consideration  to  the 
requirement  of  the  happiness  of  others.  Hence  the 
famous  formula,  that  the  highest  moral  principle  is  the 
greatest  possible  happiness  of  the  greatest  possible 
number  of  men. 

In  considering  this  theory,  we  remark,  in  the  first 
place,  that  a  psychological  error  underlies  it.  From  the 
fact  that  pleasure  is  constantly  the  result  of  the  happy 
activity  of  our  impulses,  the  Hedonist  wrongly  concludes 
that  pleasure  is  also  always  the  cause  of  our  impulses, 
and  the  only  supreme  motive.  As  pleasure  is  the  indi- 
cation of  the  satisfied  impulse,  the  existence  and  work- 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  47 

ing  of  an  impulse  must  always  be  presupposed  before 
there  can  be  any  question  of  pleasure  or  non-pleasure. 
It  is  not  the  reflection  upon  the  pleasurable  result 
which  may  be  expected  that  impels  us  to  action,  but 
simply  the  unreflected  pressure  of  some  one  of  the 
manifold  impulses  implanted  in  our  nature.  But  if 
pleasure  is  the  feeling  resulting  from  the  activity  of 
the  impulses,  then  the  more  precise  quality  of  the 
average  lasting  feeling  of  pleasure  or  happiness  in  the 
case  of  every  man,  depends  on  what  impulses  or  tend- 
encies of  the  will  are  predominating  and  ruling  in  him. 
As  different  as  men  are  in  temperament,  course  of  life, 
culture,  and  character,  so  different  becomes  their  taste 
for  what  lastingly  produces  weal  or  woe,  and  so  different 
therefore  will  be  their  ideal  of  happiness.  But  then, 
how  is  it  possible  to  establish  what  the  general  happi- 
ness, or  the  greatest  possible  happiness  of  the  greatest 
possible  number,  consists  in?  Shall  we  set  about 
arranging  some  universal  way  of  voting  upon  the  sub- 
ject, and  get  every  one  at  the  poll,  man  by  man,  to 
declare  in  what  he  considers  his  highest  happiness  to 
lie  ?  I  fear  the  result  of  this  universal  cnquSte  would 
be  of  such  a  kind  that  all  true  friends  of  the  people 
would  keep  from  recognising  it  as  the  canon  of  their 
philanthropic  efforts.  And  does  not  this  involve  the 
clear  proof  that  "  happiness "  is  a  much  too  indefinite 
and  undefinable  conception  for  being  fitted  to  be  the 
supreme  principle  of  morality  ? 


48  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

A  further  important  consideration  arises  as  a  second 
objection  to  this  theory.  As  pleasure  and  happiness 
are  a  matter  of  subjective  feeling,  the  striving  of  the 
individual  after  happiness  must  necessarily  form  the 
basis  of  the  eudiemonistic  ethics.  But  on  what  ground 
is  the  individual  to  be  required  to  strive  after  the 
happiness  of  others  and  even  of  all  ?  This  question  is 
the  Achilles-heel  of  Utilitarianism.  The  representa- 
tives of  this  theory  indeed  are  wont  to  satisfy  them- 
selves very  easily  on  this  point  by  assuming  at  once 
that  the  universal  happiness  includes  that  of  all  in- 
dividuals, and  therefore  that  every  one,  in  caring  for 
the  happiness  of  others,  eo  ipso,  cares  likewise  best  for 
his  own.  But  things  are  not  actually  so  simple  as  this. 
Experience  much  rather  shows  that  the  wellbeing  of 
others,  of  society,  of  a  people,  often  enough  does  not 
coincide  with  that  of  the  individual,  but  crosses  it ;  and 
that  such  wellbeing  demands  sacrifices  of  individual 
happiness,  renunciation  of  one's  own  advantage  and 
personal  comfort,  and  even  under  certain  circumstances 
the  very  life  of  the  individual.  What  then  is  to  deter- 
mine a  man  from  the  utilitarian  standpoint  to  such  a 
self-denying  altruistic  mode  of  action  ?  Such  conduct 
cannot,  at  all  events,  be  derived  as  a  duty  from  the 
supreme  principle  of  individual  happiness :  on  the  con- 
trary, one  would  think  that  self-denial  in  favour  of 
others  must  be  judged  to  be  immoral,  being  in  contra- 
diction with  the  supreme  moral  principle.     The  utili- 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  49 

tarians  are  indeed  seldom  resolute  enough  to  draw  tliis 
consequence.     Eather  do  they  seek  to  escape  from  the 
difficulty  by  referring  to  the  many  artificial  motives  by 
which  society  seeks  to  impel  individuals  to  a  common 
useful   mode   of   conduct,  and  to  restrain  them  from 
actions  that  would  be  prejudicial  to  the  community. 
Such  motives  are  fear  of  civil  punishment,  or  of  the 
disapprobation  of  public  opinion,  or  of  shame  and  dis- 
grace on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand,  hope  of  the 
esteem  of  society,  of  honour  and  reputation,  or  even  of  an 
untarnished  name,  and  of  the  manifold  advantages  which 
arise  to  the  individual  from  the  secured  existence  of  the 
public  legalised  order.     And  who  would  deny  that  such 
motives  are,  at  all  events,  not  to  be  underestimated  in 
their  significance  as  co-operating  factors  of  the  moral 
life?     The    question   is   only   whether   they   are    also 
adequate   when   taken  as  the  sole  basis  and  supreme 
principle  of   morals?      I   believe   that   this   must   be 
denied  on  several  grounds.     In  the  first  place,  it  is  to 
be  denied  because  all  the  motives   derived   from  the 
external  consequences  of  actions  can  be  determining 
only  for  the  external  conduct,  and  not  for  the  inner 
sentiment  of  the  actor.     Morality,  however,  in  distinc- 
tion from  legal  right,  has  to  do  with  this  inner  senti- 
ment.    Whether  any  one  restrains  himself  from  what 
is  bad  from  fear  of  civil  punishment  and  public  dis- 
srace,  or  from  an  aversion  to  what  is  mean  and  un- 
worthy  of  him,  makes  no  difference,  when  judged  from 
VOL.  I.  D 


50  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  utilitarian  consideration  of  the  result  of  his  act ; 
and  yet  the  alternative  is  very  different  for  the  moral 
judgment.  This  characteristic  of  the  moral  judgment, 
that  it  is  directed  not  merely  to  the  actions  but  to  the 
motives  and  sentiment  of  the  actor,  cannot  find  any 
ground  in  utilitarianism ;  and  hence,  in  any  case,  it 
could  not  be  fitted  to  be  the  supreme  principle  of 
morals,  but  in  the  most  favourable  case  only  to  be  the 
principle  of  a  legal  order.  But  more  exactly  viewed,  it 
is  not  sufficient  even  for  this.  For,  if  it  is  only  by  con- 
sideration of  the  consequences  of  his  action  as  useful  or 
prejudicial  to  him  that  the  individual  man  lets  him- 
self be  determined,  one  cannot  conceive  what  should 
restrain  him  whenever  he  has  not  to  fear  any,  or  com- 
paratively trivial,  evil  consequences,  from  pursuing  his 
own  advantage  in  the  most  unscrupulous  way,  at  the  cost 
of  his  fellow-men.  The  prudent  egoist  who,  without 
getting  into  collision  with  the  penal  law  and  preserva- 
tion of  his  external  position,  knows  how  he  can  mer- 
cilessly make  use  of  others  as  instruments  and  sacri- 
fices for  his  own  advantage — nay,  even  the  prudent 
criminal,  who  may  understand  how  to  keep  himself 
free  from  punishment — would  not  be  to  blame  from  the 
standjDoint  of  a  prudent  calculation  of  utility.  But  it 
is  clear  that,  in  a  society  in  which  such  a  way  of  think- 
ing was  universally  prevalent,  the  legal  order  could  not 
permanently  exist,  but  would  necessarily  soon  be  dis- 
solved into  the  chaos   of   a   "  helium   omnium    contra 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  51 

omnes."  The  historical  example  of  this  issue  is  pre- 
sented in  the  history  of  French  society  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century. 

Finally,  if  the  Eudamonists,  along  with  the  external 
consequences  of  actions,  also  reflect  upon  their  inner 
consequences,  such  as  the  joy  of  a  good  conscience  and 
of  self-esteem,  the  pain  of  a  bad  conscience  and  of  self- 
contempt,  and  would  derive  from  them  efficient  motives, 
they  are  thus  manifestly  borrowing  from  the  idealistic 
moral  principle,  otherwise  combated  by  them.     They 
must,  however,  first  show  how  such  .moral  feelings  are 
at  all  possible  from    their    eudsmonistic    standpoint. 
Certain  as  it  is  that  the  man  in  whom  the  feeling  of 
duty  lives,  shrinks  from  evil  as  a  source  of  inner  misery, 
just   as  little  can  this  feeling,  which  already  presup- 
poses the  consciousness  of  the  obligatory  authority  of 
the  good,  be  made  the  ground  of  this  very  conscious- 
ness, or  the  principle  of  morality.     If  a  man  be  once 
told  that  the  striving  after  happiness  is  the  supreme 
determining  principle  of  action,  he  cannot  be  prevented 
from  seeking  his  happiness  in  the  satisfaction  of  those 
impulses  which  he  finds  to  be  the  strongest.     If  these 
happen  to  be  the  sensuous  and  selfish  impulses,  he  may 
then  indeed  be  pitied  on  account  of  his  bad  taste,  but 
he  cannot  be  blamed  for  his  violation  of  the  moral 
principle.     Nor  will  much  be  effected  in  his  case  by 
warning  him  against  the  evil  consequences  of  his  mode 
of  action,  or  the  pain  of  an  evil  conscience  and  of  self- 


52  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

contempt,  for  appeal  is  then  made  to  feelings  which 
have  not  been  developed  in  the  course  of  his  striving 
after  happiness,  and  towards  which  he  holds  himself 
indifferent,  nay,  which  he  even  repudiates  with  proud 
contempt,  because  they  could  only  prevent  him  from 
seeking  and  enjoying  the  happiness  of  life  in  Ms  own 
way.  We  cannot  gather  grapes  from  thorns.  If  sub- 
jective eudfemonism  is  taken  as  the  principle  of 
morality,  no  dialectical  art  will  ever  succeed  in  de- 
riving from  it  the  unconditioned  authority  of  the  good, 
independent  of  the  inclination  and  favour  of  the  in- 
dividual, or  the  sanctity  of  duty.  And  wherever  this 
appears  to  be  the  case,  there  is  always  involved  a  ;petitio 
prindpii.  The  feeling  of  duty,  the  founding  of  which 
is  here  in  question,  is  already  silently  assumed  as 
present,  and  it  is  then  certainly  easy  to  show  how,  in 
judging  of  the  relative  value  of  individual  modes  of 
action,  their  consequences  are  regulated  for  human 
wellbeing.  However  justified  utilitarianism  may  be 
as  a  heuristic  principle  in  the  process  of  valuing  in- 
dividual actions,  it  is  as  little  available  as  a  foundation 
for  moral  sentiment  and  the  formation  of  character. 

This  has  been  well  recognised  by  the  idealistic 
moralists  from  Zeno  to  Kant,  and  they  have  therefore 
sought  for  the  foundation  of  autonomous  morality  in 
an  opposite  way.  According  to  the  Stoics,  the  virtue, 
dignity,  and  happiness  of  man  consist  not  in  the  satis- 
faction of  the  desires,  but  in  freedom  from  desires,  in 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  53 

apathy,  or  in  the  supremacy  of  the  passionless  reason. 
And  Kant  in  like  manner  taught  again  that  our  reason 
unconditionally  commands  us  to  respect  the  dignity  of 
humanity  in  every  man,  to  recognise  every  person  as  a 
subject  of  rights  and  duties,  and  always  to  fulfil  our 
own  duty  unconditionally,  purely  from  respect  for  duty, 
independent  of  all  inclination,  and  even  in  constant 
conflict  with  inclination.  Certainly  there  is  something 
sublime  in  this  Kantian  view  of  virtue  which  belongs 
unconditionally  to  duty,  from  pure  respect  for  the  law, 
or  for  our  own  reason  as  the  lawgiver,  and  which  con- 
cedes no  rights  whatever  to  the  inclinations,  but  on  the 
contrary  proves  its  higher  descent  and  strength  just  in 
conflict  with  them.  But  it  may  well  be  asked,  Is  this 
sublime  virtue  not  cold,  and  even  repellently  cold,  when 
it  appeals  to  us  ?  Was  Schiller  not  right  when  he  said 
that  this  morality  of  the  categorical  imperative  "is^a 
morality  for  slaves,  and  one  which  the  children  of  the 
house  do  not  deserve  "  ?  and  was  the  Gospel  not  right 
when  it  showed  us  in  heartfelt  love  to  the  divine  ideal 
of  the  good,  a  higher,  because  freer  and  gladder,  morality 
than  that  of  the  law  ? 

But  if  we  ask  how  this  rigorism  of  the  Kantian 
ethics,  which  reminds  us  of  the  Stoa,  is  explained,  we 
shall  recognise  the  same  ground  for  it  as  in  the  case  of 
Stoicism.  It  lies  in  the  ascetic  dualism  which  severs 
reason  from  nature,  and  in  the  rigid  individualism 
which   severs   the  individual  from  the   fellowship   of 


54  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

mankind  and  of  the  Deity.     In  order  to  secure  the 
dignity  of  man  as  a  moral  personality,  Kant  believed 
that  it  was  necessary  to  set  him  entirely  upon  him- 
self, upon  his  own  reason  and  autonomous  freedom, 
and  to  exclude  him  from  all  the  influences  of  nature, 
and   of   human    society,  and   God.     He   resolved    the 
moral  world  into  a  plurality  of  spiritual  monads,  be- 
tween which  there  is   found  no  moral  reciprocity,  no 
bond  of  solidarity  of  its  members,  no  organic  develop- 
ment of  the  common  spirit,  no  divine  education  of  the 
whole.     But  how  under  such  a  presupposition  can  we 
find  it  thinkable  that  the  weak  voice  of  the  law-giving 
reason  of  the  individual  could  ever  procure  for  itself 
hearing  and  respect  from  the  sensuous  and  selfish  im- 
pulses which  are  only  continually  resisting  it  ?      In 
fact,  such  an  abstract  reason  would  never  be  able  to 
realise  its  moral  demand  ;  humanity  would  never  be 
able  to  come  even  to  the  first  steps  of  moral  develop- 
ment were  there  not  already  implanted  in  our  nature 
those    social   impulses   and   feelings   which   bind    the 
individual    from    the    beginning    instinctively   to    the 
community,  and  which,  developed   by  the   educating 
influence  of  society,  become  powers  for  good,  in  which 
the  later  awakening  voice    of   the   law-giving  reason 
finds  its  inner  natural  representative  and  echo,    Kant, 
by  ignoring  this  natural  connection  of  the  individual 
with  the  species,  not  only  made  the  growth  of  the  good 
and  the  realisation  of  reason  in  man  inconceivable,  but 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  55 

he  also  evacuated  the  idea  of  the  good  of  all  deter- 
minate contents.  In  place  of  the  manifold  moral 
goods  which  the  divine-human  spirit  has  created  in 
history,  and  which  can  become  to  the  heart  of  man 
an  object  of  reverence,  devotion,  love,  and  inspiration, 
Kant  has  put  the  empty  formula  of  duty,  which  re- 
pels the  feeling  heart,  suppresses  the  living  individu- 
ality, and  makes  the  moral  world  stiffen  into  barren 
monotony. 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  a  protest  was  raised  against 
this  suppression  of  individual  feelings,  even  by  such 
men  as  otherwise  gave  their  full  approval  to  the 
idealism  of  the  Kantian  ethics.  The  Herders  and 
Schillers,  the  Fichtes  and  Schleiermachers,  were  not 
less  averse  to  the  ordinary  utilitarian  morality  than 
Kant ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  could  not  be 
satisfied  with  the  irreconcilable  discordance  asserted 
by  Kant  between  reason  and  nature,  duty  and  incli- 
nation ;  they  were  convinced  that  this  opposition  must 
find  its  reconciliation  in  a  higher  morality,  in  which 
duty  itself  has  become  the  object  of  inclination,  the 
good  has  become  the  good  that  yields  happiness,  and 
obligation  has  become  the  free  and  joyous  volition  of 
the  will.  They  designated  this  higher  moral  ideal  by 
various  names — they  called  it  humanity,  moral  beauty, 
freedom,  love ;  but  they  were  always  agreed  in  holding 
that  it  is  what  is  properly  divine  in  man,  what  raises 
him  above  the  narrow  limit  of  his  own  selfhood,  and 


56  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

unites  him  with  the  primary  source  of  spirits.  Thus, 
by  carrying  idealism  itself  to  a  deeper  position,  they 
at  last  reached  a  religious  morality  which,  however  far 
it  might  be  removed  from  the  ecclesiastical  faith  of 
revelation  and  authority,  yet  came  into  closest  con- 
tact with  the  fundamental  character  of  Christian 
morality.  JSTor  did  these  original  thinkers  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  century  deny  the  connection  of  their 
ethical  idealism  with  Christianity :  with  all  their  free 
attitude  towards  the  Church  and  dogma,  they  had  yet 
so  much  historical  sense  as  to  recognise  that  the 
humanity,  the  beautiful  culture,  and  the  love  in  which 
they  beheld  the  moral  ideal,  was  a  fruit  that  had 
ripened  on  the  tree  of  Christianity.  It  was  the  Epi- 
gons  about  the  middle  of  this  century,  such  as  Feuer- 
bach  in  Germany,  the  two  Mills  in  England,  and  Comte 
in  France,  who  first  began  to  accentuate  the  difference 
of  their  free  secular  morality  from  that  of  Christianity, 
and  to  carry  it  out  to  a  sharp,  extreme  contrast.  Since 
that  time  it  appears  almost  to  be  regarded  as  if  it  be- 
longed to  good  tone  in  the  circles  of  advanced  culture 
to  boast  of  the  independence  of  morality  from  all  and 
every  religion,  as  the  highest  achievement  of  the  pres- 
ent time.  This  position  seems  to  recall  in  many  re- 
spects the  old  history  of  the  friendship  between  Pilate 
and  Herod.  Eepresentatives  of  the  opposite  tendencies, 
namely,  idealists  and  utilitarians,  are  now  seen  uniting 
with  each  other  and   working;  together  in  union  for 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  57 

the    spread   of    an   emancipated    secular    religionless 
morality. 

What  are  we  to  say,  then,  regarding  this  phenomenon? 
In  the  first  place,  we  may  regard  it  as  a  natural  product 
of  our  time,  when  extremes  are  everywhere  carried  out 
to  the  sharpest  opposition.  In  particular,  the  striving 
of  the  different  Churches  for  power  and  supremacy  now 
makes  itself  everywhere  felt  in  increased  energy,  and 
opposes  to  all  the  struggling  of  the  new  time  for  a 
reform  of  the  traditional  doctrines  and  dogmas  only  a 
rigid  non  2J0ssumus,  and  exhorts  us  modern  men  to 
bring  to  it  the  sacrifice  of  intellect.  This  naturally 
incites  the  self-conscious  spirits  of  the  age  to  haughty 
opposition,  and  drives  them  into  the  arms  of  a  Voltair- 
ean  radicalism,  which  believes  that  it  can  find  moral 
progress  only  by  a  breach  in  principle  with  religion 
and  the  Church.  But  however  conceivable  this  mood 
of  many  of  our  contemporaries  may  be,  yet  it  cannot 
be  regarded  as  sound  or  wholesome.  We  indeed  will- 
ingly admit  that  to-day,  as  in  all  former  times,  there 
are  many  estimable  moral  characters  among  the  irre- 
ligious men  of  our  time — men  who  are  distinguished 
by  strict  conscientiousness,  faithful  fulfilment  of  the 
duties  of  their  calling,  and  devoted  zeal  for  the  well- 
being  of  their  fellow-men ;  but,  far  as  I  am  from  wish- 
ing to  dispute  this  experience,  I  would  still  raise  a 
warning  against  drawing  too  rashly  from  such  isolated 
examples    of    religionless    morality   universal    conclu- 


58  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

sions  regarding  the  normal  relationship  of  religion  and 
morality. 

I  should  like,  in  the  first  place,  to  refer  to  the  fact 
that  the  moral  principles  and  sentiments  of  such  men 
have  nevertheless  not  become  what  they  are  of  them- 
selves, but  are  the  fruit  of  their  education  by  the 
Christian  community,  which  led  the  young  by  doctrine 
and  example  to  the  recognition  of  the  good  as  what  is 
absolutely  valuable,  as  a  "  sacred  "  authority,  and  which 
deeply  impressed  on  their  still  susceptible  hearts  the 
feelings  of  reverence  and  piety,  and  of  obligation  and 
love  for  the  ideals  of  the  good.  To  the  subsequent  in- 
fluence of  this  education  by  the  Christian  community, 
whether  they  are  conscious  of  it  or  not,  we  owe  the 
best  of  our  moral  convictions  and  the  formation  of  our 
character.  But  it  is  at  the  same  time  an  unquestion- 
able fact  that  the  Christian  community  rests  on  a 
religious  foundation,  and  that  its  moral  sentiment  is 
rooted  in  its  religious  belief.  The  good  is  regarded  by 
it  as  the  absolute  authority,  not  because  it  is  useful,  but 
because  it  is  the  revelation  of  the  holy  will  of  God ;  its 
faith  in  the  victory  of  the  good  in  the  world  rests  not 
upon  the  postulate  of  the  subjective  reason,  but  upon 
the  objective  experiences  of  history,  in  which  it  recog- 
nises revelations  of  the  judging  and  saving,  the  redeem- 
ing and  educating,  spirit  of  God.  This  radical  implica- 
tion of  morality  in  the  religious  view  of  the  world  and 
history  may  indeed  pass  from  the  consciousness  of  par- 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  59 

ticular  individuals  who  have  been  educated  by  the 
Christian  community,  but  it  continues  to  exist  in  the 
common  spirit  of  the  whole  community,  by  which  the 
individual  moral  spirit  is  maintained  and  reared.  Now, 
if  we  put  the  case  that  the  religious  faith  which  has 
hitherto  formed  the  root  of  the  moral  convictions  in 
Christian  society  has  fallen  away,  not  merely  in  the 
case  of  individual  persons,  but  for  whole  generations, 
would  it  then  be  probable  that  the  moral  convictions 
could  thereafter  also  assert  themselves  without  modi- 
fication in  the  purity  and  power  with  which  they  have 
been  hitherto  propagated  by  the  Christian  training  ? 
The  experience  of  history  does  not  appear  to  speak  for 
its  being  so ;  rather  does  it  show  that,  in  times  of  re- 
ligious decay,  general  languidness  of  faith,  and  scepti- 
cism, the  moral  consciousness  is  also  wont  to  sink,  and 
fall  into  weakness,  confusion,  and  dissolution. 

I  should  like  further  to  raise  the  question  whether 
in  the  case  of  many  and  even  the  most  earnest 
representatives  of  religionless  morality,  the  professed 
irreligiosity  is  not  rather  more  apparent  than  real  ? 
They  repudiate  the  religion  exhibited  in  the  definite 
form  of  the  ecclesiastical  dogmas  in  which  they  have 
learned  to  know  it ;  but  does  it  follow  from  this  that 
religious  belief,  or  piety,  is  extraneous  to  them  in  every 
sense  ?  In  the  case  of  men  of  truly  moral  sentiment 
we  may  well  doubt  the  possibility  of  their  total  irre- 
ligiousness ;  for  the  upright  man  who  is  earnestly  in- 


60  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

terested  not  merely  in  the  appearance  of  the  good  or 
external  legality  and  respectability,  but  for  the  good 
itself,  cannot  but  attribute  to  the  good  the  highest 
right  in  the  world,  and  therefore  must  demand  its 
victorious  assertion  and  accomplishment  in  reality. 
But  in  demanding  this,  and  feeling  the  right  of  this 
demand,  he  will  also  have  the  courage  to  believe  in 
its  truth,  to  believe  therefore  in  the  good  as  the  true 
power  over  the  world,  or  in  such  a  constitution  of 
the  actual  world  that  it  must  serve  as  a  means  for 
the  realisation  of  the  good.  Now  this  belief  in  "  the 
moral  world-order"  is  in  fact  already  "religion";  it 
is  the  religion  of  Fichte,  of  Matthew  Arnold,  and  of 
many  ethical  idealists.  Whether  religious  belief  could 
not,  and  should  not,  be  still  more  definitely  appre- 
hended, is  a  question  of  second  rank,  which  will  engage 
our  attention  in  a  later  connection.  We  may  here, 
however,  recall  the  fact  that  Fichte  soon  advanced 
from  belief  in  the  moral  world-order  to  faith  in  God 
as  the  sole  principle  of  all  that  is  true  and  good.  And 
it  is  in  truth  a  near  consequence  that  the  good,  if  it  is 
the  end  of  the  world,  must  likewise  be  its  ground  ;  and 
if  it  is  both  the  ground  and  end  of  the  world,  it  must 
likewise  rule  the  wliolc  course  of  the  world,  and  con- 
sequently reveal  itself  not  only  in  the  far  future,  but 
in  the  whole  historical  reality  as  the  spiritual  power 
that  progressively  realises  itself.  In  recognising  this 
we  stand,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  upon  the  basis  of  the 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  61 

Christian  faith  in  God,  as  has  also  been  distinctly 
recognised  by  Fichte  in  his  later  philosophy  of 
religion. 

Where  the  moral  consciousness  is  not  able  to  rise  to 
this  faith,  and  to  find  in  it  its  immovable  foundation, 
it  is  always  threatened  with  the  danger  of  losing  its 
energy  in  conflict  with  empirical  reality,  and  ultimately 
becoming  perplexed.  One  can  only  deceive  one's  self 
regarding  this  danger  so  long  as  the  eyes  are  closed  in 
naive  optimism  to  the  power  of  the  evil  and  badness 
that  are  in  the  world  outside  of  us,  and  to  the  weakness 
of  one's  own  heart,  as  is  indeed  the  case  at  the  moment 
with  most  of  the  heralds  of  the  religion  of  humanity  or 
of  religionless  morality.  But  experience  also  teaches 
that  this  simple  optimism  is  not  able  to  stand  long 
before  the  harsh  power  of  reality.  There  is  certainly 
something  great  in  universal  philanthropy,  that  prin- 
ciple of  Christian  morality ;  but  if  it  is  no  longer,  as  in 
Christianity,  the  fruit  of  religious  belief,  but  a  substi- 
tute for  it,  then  the  serious  question  arises  whether 
men  as  they  exhibit  themselves  in  experience  are 
really  so  amiable  that  it  would  be  an  easy  thing  to 
love  them  unceasingly,  to  exert  all  one's  powers  for 
their  good,  and  to  make  the  greatest  sacrifices  for 
them  ?  If  the  philanthropist  is  rewarded  with  bitter 
ingratitude  when  his  noblest  endeavours  fail,  from  the 
callousness  of  some  and  the  malice  of  others,  must  not 
his  enthusiasm  be  chilled,  and  his  courage  in  sacrifice 


62  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  action  be  maimed,  miless  he  draw  nnconquerable 
force  from  his  faith  in  the  power  of  a  goodness  which 
overcomes  the  world  as  it  appears,  and  is  therefore 
divine  ?  He  only  can  love  men  in  a  lasting  and  ener- 
getic way  who  looks  not  merely  npon  what  is  before 
his  eyes,  namely,  the  common  reality,  but  who  believes 
in  the  indestructible  divine  element  in  man ;  but  how 
can  one  believe  on  the  divine  in  man  without  belief  in 
the  divine  which  is  superior  and  prior  to  man,  the 
eternal  spirit,  of  whom  and  through  whom  and  to 
whom  are  all  things  ?  It  is  undoubtedly  possible  that 
even  where  the  wings  of  philanthropic  enthusiasm 
have  been  broken  by  rough  contact  with  reality,  the 
feeling  of  duty  may  still  remain  strong  enough  to 
determine  permanently  the  moral  guidance  of  life. 
Experience  shows  us  not  seldom  such  stoical  charac- 
ters, who,  without  loving  men,  and  even  with  expressed 
contempt  of  them,  yet  keep  firm  and  unmoved  to  duty 
for  the  sake  of  duty.  Undisturbed  by  the  success  or 
failure  of  their  actions,  they  hold  fast  to  what  they 
know  to  be  right  as  that  which  is  commanded  by  their 
reason.  They  respect  the  law  of  their  reason,  because 
they  must  otherwise  lose  respect  for  themselves.  Such 
virtue  we  must  always  regard  as  estimable :  we  may 
well  admire  its  power  of  defying  the  world,  but  we  will 
hardly  trust  its  power  to  overcome  the  world.  The 
very  hardness  which  it  uses  to  protect  and  steel  itself 
against  the  world,  slays  those  tenderer  feelings  which 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  63 

bind  man  to  the  world,  and  open  to  him  the  entrance 
to  the  hearts  of  his  fellow-men.  The  rough  severity  of 
this  virtue  does  not  exercise  a  warming  and  attracting, 
but  a  repelling  and  chilling,  influence  upon  its  sur- 
roundings ;  it  isolates  the  moral  person  from  society, 
and  thereby  cuts  off  his  moral  influence  upon  it ;  and 
the  feeling  of  this  isolation  engenders  but  too  easily 
a  pessimistic  bitterness  and  proud  haughtiness  towards 
the  despised  crowd.  This  is  the  frequent  fate  of  those 
strong  natures  who,  for  the  humble  and  trustful  morality 
of  the  pious  soul,  would  substitute  the  proud  morality 
of  the  autonomous  law  of  reason.  But  for  weak  natures 
it  is  altogether  to  be  feared  that  respect  for  the  auton- 
omous moral  law  would  be  but  an  inadequate  substitute 
for  the  religious  support  of  the  moral  consciousness  in 
its  struggle  with  the  adversities  and  temptations  of  life. 
Belief  in  determinate  dogmas  may  certainly  disappear 
without  any  injury  to  morality,  seeing  that  they  are 
only  artificial  and  fallible  attempts  to  interpret  man's 
religious  experience ;  but  where  the  kernel  of  re- 
ligious faith  has  also  disappeared  —  namely,  the  con- 
viction that  the  world  is  God's,  and  that  the  course  of 
the  world  is  subservient  to  the  realisation  of  the  divine 
purpose  of  good, — what  could  then  give  the  moral 
consciousness  power  to  protect  itself  from  sceptical 
dissolution  ?  If  the  good  is  not  the  governing  power 
of  the  ivorld,  why  should  /  then  still  recognise  it  as  the 
authority  binding  on  my  will  ?     If  I  find  myself  in 


64  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

a  world  in  which  nothing  is  found  hut  selfishness 
sporting  in  a  hundred  forms  and  disguises,  and  vic- 
toriously achieving  its  ends,  why  then  should  I  be  an 
exception  to  others,  and  sacrifice  my  inclinations  and 
interests  to  what  I  have  been  taught  to  regard  as  my 
duty  ?  What  then — so  at  last  asks  the  sceptical  un- 
derstanding— what  then  give?  duty  the  higher  right  as 
superior  to  my  inclinations  ?  If  it  be  only  my  own 
thought,  why  should  I  not  then  be  also  the  lord  over 
my  own  thoughts  ?  If  it  is  a  rule  of  action  which 
I  have  set  to  myself  from  my  own  freedom,  why  then 
should  I  not  be  able  again  to  loosen  myself  from  this 
rule  when  it  becomes  too  inconvenient  for  me  ?  But 
if  it  is  a  rule  which  others  have  devised  and  prescribed 
to  me,  what  then  obliges  me  to  give  obedience  to  the 
will  of  others  who  are  not  more  than  I  am,  and  who 
also  only  follow  after  their  selfish  interests  ?  If  selfish- 
ness stands  opposed  to  selfishness,  why  should  my 
self-seeking  not  have  just  as  much  right  as  that  of 
others  ?  Am  I  not  the  nearest  one  to  myself  ?  Have 
not  I  therefore  the  right  to  make  myself,  my  own 
wishes  and  interests,  the  measure  of  all  things,  the 
criterion  of  all  my  actions  ? 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  how  the  moral  conscious- 
ness could  preserve  itself  from  such  sceptical  dissolution 
if  it  wholly  severed  itself  from  all  religious  foundation. 
The  moral  law  will  only  be  able  to  assert  its  absolute 
validity  if  it  springs  not  out  of  the  thinking  of  indi- 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  65 

vidual  men,  whether  it  be  my  thinking  or  that  of 
others,  but  is  the  revelation  of  the  willing  of  the  uni- 
versal reason,  which  stands  ahove  all  individual  wills 
as  their  ground,  and  is  at  the  same  time  active  in  them 
as  the  common  bond  of  their  community.  This  is  just 
the  divine  will.  In  so  far  as  all  individuals  feel  them- 
selves bound  to  this  power  which  rules  over  the  whole, 
they  are  also  bound  internally  to  each  other ;  and,  in- 
deed, bound  by  a  bond  which  rests  in  the  ground  of 
their  being,  and  which  consequently  precedes  all  par- 
ticular desire  and  choice  and  reiiection,  which  is  not  a 
product  of  their  freedom,  but  the  presupposition,  and 
therefore  the  power,  the  authority,  over  their  freedom. 
But  in  this  transcendental  obligation  of  all,  there  is 
likewise  contained,  together  with  duty,  the  right  of 
every  person  to  be  recognised  and  esteemed  by  others 
as  a  rational  being  and  an  end  in  himself.  Eesting 
upon  the  ground  of  the  divine  will,  human  society  is 
a  moral  organism  in  which  all  stand  for  one,  and  one 
for  all.  Take  that  religious  ground  away,  and  society 
dissolves  into  a  chaos,  in  which  every  one  is  against 
all,  and  all  against  every  one. 

If  I  may  now  attempt  to  sum  up  the  result  of  what 
has  been  said,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  relation  of  re- 
ligion and  morality  may  be  most  simply  determined  in 
this  way.  They  have  both  a  common  root,  which  is  the 
transcendental  fact  of  the  human  will  being  bound  to 
the  universal  or  divine  will ;  but  this  principle  obtains 

VOL.  I.  E 


66  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

immediate  manifestation  in  religion  as  the  union  of 
God  and  man,  while  in  morality  it  appears  mediately 
as  the  social  bond  of  the  individual  and  society.  So 
far  it  may  be  said  that  religion  contains  the  ideal 
ground  of  morality,  and  morality  the  real  manifesta- 
tion of  religion.  From  this  it  follows  that  each  of 
them  has  its  truth  only  in  union  with  the  other ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  either  of  them  must  become 
stunted  and  falsified  when  torn  away  from  the  other. 
If  religion  tears  itself  away  from  morality,  then  its 
symbolical  representation  of  the  transcendental  prin- 
ciple of  unity  becomes  an  empty  form,  a  mere  image, 
mythology  and  ceremonial  worship ;  and  in  so  far  as  a 
mysterious  truth  and  power  are  still  ascribed  to  these 
empty  forms,  to  these  fantastic  ideas  and  arbitrary 
ceremonies,  then  religion,  robbed  of  its  moral  content, 
becomes  perverted  into  a  caricature  of  the  truth,  and 
from  this  proceed  pernicious  superstition,  magic,  and 
fanaticism — religious  malformations  or  deformities  by 
which  the  moral  life  of  individuals  and  of  the  com- 
munity is  injured  and  suppressed.  Against  this  the 
moral  spirit  then  reacts  by  tearing  itself  away  from 
religion,  and  by  seeking  to  quieten  itself  upon  an 
extra-religious  secular  basis.  In  this  lies  indeed  a 
step  of  progress,  in  so  far  as  morality,  freed  from  the 
hindrances  put  in  its  way  by  the  superstitious  and 
hierarchical  ordinances  of  positive  religion,  then  gains 
independence  of  movement,  which  enables  it  to  order 
society  according   to  the  natural  wants  and  rational 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY.  67 

ends  of  human  nature.  But  if,  with  the  statutory- 
coverings  of  religion,  there  is  given  up  at  the  same 
time  its  essential  kernel,  which  contains  the  ideal 
principle  of  morality  itself,  the  result  is  that  the 
secularised  morality  becomes  stunted  and  dies,  like  the 
plant  which  has  been  cut  off  from  its  roots.  Then  in 
place  of  the  genuine  moral  sentiment,  there  comes  the 
surrogate  of  an  egoistic  prudential  morality,  or  even 
the  naturalism  of  a  war  of  all  against  all,  the  dis- 
organisation of  society,  which  leads  to  a  universal  un- 
freedom.  True,  the  idealistic  morality  strives  after 
something  higher,  by  the  attempt  to  ground  morality 
upon  the  autonomous  reason  ;  but  by  isolating  this 
principle  in  the  thinking  subject  and  separating  it 
from  the  historical  life  of  the  community,  it  falls  into 
an  unfruitful  formalism,  which  is  not  able  to  take  the 
place  of  the  religious  root  of  morality.  Accordingly, 
experience  shows  that  morality  can  just  as  little 
flourish  without  religion  as  religion  without  morality ; 
while  religion  sinks  into  pseudo-religious  superstition 
and  fanaticism,  morality  sinks  into  a  pseudo- moral 
naturalism  and  abstract  formalism.  Hence  it  follows 
that,  as  they  both  spring  out  of  the  same  root,  so  they 
can  only  develop  normally  into  full  harmony  and  living 
reciprocity  with  each  other. 

It  is  the  great  and  eternal  truth  of  Christianity  that 
it  has  raised  this  inner  connection  of  religion  and 
morality  to  a  principle.  Morality  has  here  its  firm 
ground,  its  living  root,  in  the  consciousness  of  our  son- 


68  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ship  to  God,  in  love  to  God  the  Father,  and  to  Christ, 
the  ideal  of  the  divine  Man,  and  in  surrender  to  the 
universal  divine  purpose  of  the  world — namely,  the 
kingdom  of  God,  that  ideal  of  the  perfect  community 
and  fellowship  of  humanity,  which  is  not  a  mere  ideal, 
an  abstract  postulate  and  problem  of  human  striving, 
but  is  always  at  the  same  time  a  growing  reality, 
a  working  of  the  divine  spirit  in  historical  humanity, 
and  which  therefore  also  contains  the  real  possibility 
and  guarantee  for  the  becoming  good  and  blessed  of  all 
the  individuals  who  surrender  themselves  to  this  spirit 
as  its  instrument.  And  as  the  Christian  morality  has 
its  firm  ground  in  faith  in  God  and  the  coming  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Christian 
religion  has  its  real  manifestation  in  morality.  "  This 
is  the  love  of  God,  that  we  keep  His  commandments." 
"  And  this  commandment  have  we  from  Him,  That  he 
who  loveth  God  love  his  brother  also."  Jesus  has  con- 
nected love  to  man  with  love  to  God  as  the  same  great 
commandment,  and  Paul  has  called  love  fulfilment  of 
the  law.  Not  in  lip-service  that  says  "  Lord,  Lord," 
and  not  in  the  practice  of  ceremonial  worship,  but  in 
the  rational  worship  (Eomans  xii.  2)  of  the  moral  life, 
does  Christian  piety  find  its  manifestation  and  authen- 
tication. Christianity  is  not  faith  merely,  and  not 
charity  alone,  but  "faith,  hope,  charity,  these  three; 
but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity." 


LECTURE    III. 

RELIGION    AND    SCIENCE. 

As  with  the  beginnings  of  morals,  the  beginnings  of 
science   among    all    peoples    likewise   lie   in   religion. 
Myths  and  legends  are  the  original  forms  in  which 
man's  impulse  to  find  his  place  in  the  world   sought 
to  satisfy  itself;  and  out  of  them  proceeded  the  cos- 
mologies which  everywhere  form  the  beginnings  of   a 
philosophical  explanation  of  the  world.     But  as  secular 
morality   with   the  progress   of   civilisation   separated 
itself   from   religion,  so  in  like  manner   the   impulse 
towards    knowledge   did   not   feel   itself    permanently 
satisfied  by  the  traditional  legends.      Men  sought  by 
independent  reflection  on  the  phenomena  around  them 
for  better  answers  as  to  the  What  and  Whence  of  things, 
and  in  this  way  they  soon  came  to  hypotheses  and  views 
which  stood  in  more  or  less  manifest  opposition  to  the 
religious  traditions.     Our  own  age  feels  more  painfully 
than  any  former  time  has  done  the  pressure  of  the 


70  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

opposition  between  faith  and  knowledge;  and  this  is 
proved  by  the  ever-renewed  attempts  to  reach  in  one 
way  or  another  a  solution  of  this  opposition,  or  at  least 
to  bring  about  a  mitigation  of  the  extreme  tension  now 
holding  between  religion  and  science. 

Let  us,  in  the  first  place,  survey  the  relation  of  re- 
ligion and  science  in  its  historical  development,  and 
then  try  to  discover  in  the  nature  of  the  cognitive 
mind  the  point  of  contact  with  religion,  and  conse- 
quently the  connecting  point  for  a  mediation  between 
religion  and  science. 

A  theoretical  factor  is  essential  to  all  religion ;  man 
must  form  an  idea  of  the  power  that  governs  his  world, 
and  of  his  own  position  in  relation  to  it  and  to  the 
world.  But  its  interest  does  not  turn  upon  an  exact 
knowledge  of  the  individual  in  detail,  such  as  the  un- 
derstanding seeks  to  obtain  by  observation  and  com- 
parison, abstraction  and  combination ;  on  the  contrary, 
the  organ  of  knowledge  involved  in  religion  is  originally 
only  the  fantasy  which  objectifies  religious  feelings  in 
images  of  sensible  perception,  and  thus  creates  myths, 
fables,  and  legends.  Mythology  is  the  natural  language 
of  religion,  the  indispensable  investment  of  spiritual 
emotions  and  aspirations  in  sensible  images.  But  this 
investment  is  effected  so  unconsciously  and  involun- 
tarily that  no  distinction  is  made  between  the  spiritual 
content  and  the  sensible  form.  The  sensible  object, 
whether  it  be  a  natural  phenomenon  or  man,  which 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  71 

awakens  in  the  soul  the  religious  impression  of  a  higher 
world  of  spiritual  mysterious  powers,  is  so  identified 
with  this  impression  that  it  appears  itself  immediately 
as  the  divine.    Thus  arise  the  primitive  religious  myths 
in  which  content  and  form  are  still  immediately  one, 
and  the  spiritual  is  present  in  the  consciousness  only 
in  and  with  the  sensible.      In  the  further  spinning  out 
of  the  legends  there  undoubtedly  also  works  the  free 
creative  fantasy,  whose  end  is  aesthetic  enjoyment,  and 
which  plays  freely  with  its  forms  in  the  interest  of 
poetic  beauty.      But  from  this  artistic  creation  of  the 
epic  poets  the  original  religious  mythical  creation  is 
distinguished  in  the  soul  of  the  people  in  this,  that  in 
the  latter  case  the  fantasy  does  not  yet  stand  as  a  free 
superior  over  its  object,  nor  does  it  deal  freely  with  its 
forms,  but  is  still  so  wrapped  up  in  its  objects  that  it 
believes  in  its  own  forms. 

Even  in  the  higher  religions,  in  which  the  divine  is 
no  longer  identified  with  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
but  is  known  as  a  higher  object  above  nature,  the 
religious  spirit  still  requires  the  creative  fantasy  in 
order  to  give  to  its  inner  experiences  a  sensible  ex- 
pression. From  this  need  spring  those  miraci'Ious 
legends,  in  which  historical  processes  become  idealised 
into  images  and  types  of  spiritual  experiences  which 
always  repeat  themselves  in  the  life  of  pious  souls,  or 
in  which  super-sensible  truths,  ideas,  and  ideals,  sprung 
from  the  inner  world  of  the  spirit,  become  realised  in 


72  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

symbolical  processes  of  the  external  world.  In  order 
to  know  the  good  as  the  true,  the  human  mind  re- 
quires a  mediation  of  the  two  by  poetic  beauty,  in 
which  the  idea  comes  to  manifestation  in  the  medium 
of  the  real,  and  in  which  the  sensible  is  transfigured 
so  as  to  become  the  transparent  veil  of  the  spiritual. 
This  combination  of  spiritual  significance  and  sensible 
expression  is  thus  always  characteristic  of  the  religious 
mode  of  representation :  the  whole  language  of  the 
Bible  bears  witness  to  it.  And  so  long  as  this  mode 
of  speech  finds  naive  religious  apprehension,  the  sen- 
sible form  does  not  make  itself  felt  as  in  any  way 
disturbing  the  spiritual  meaning.  It  is  not  till  the 
reflecting  understanding  comes  in  and  seeks  to  under- 
stand literally  what  is  meant  figuratively,  and  when 
it  would  fix  the  indefinite  flowing  and  ever-changing 
representations  into  fixed  conceptions  and  doctrines, 
that  the  difficulties,  the  absurdities,  and  the  contra- 
dictions arise  which  demand  solution,  explanation,  and 
mediation.  This  was  the  task  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Christian  Church  from  the  end  of  the  second  century 
on  through  several  centuries.  In  order  to  repel  the 
errors  of  the  heretics,  and  to  grasp  the  faith  of  the 
Church  in  fixed,  universally  authoritative  propositions 
or  "  dogmas,"  they  made  use  of  the  Greek  philosophy 
as  in  their  time  the  universally  employed  medium 
of  didactic  communication  and  elucidation.  This  pro- 
cedure was  the  more  readily  adopted,  seeing  that  Plato's 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  73 

transcendent  world  of  ideas  came  closely  into  touch 
with  the  transcendent  kingdom  of  heaven  of  the 
Christian  Apocalyi3se,  and  as  the  notion  of  the  Logos 
in  the  Hellenistic  philosophy  had  already  been  em- 
ployed in  the  New  Testament  to  designate  the  revela- 
tion of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  would  undoubtedly  be 
doing  wrong  to  the  Church  Fathers  if  the  intention 
were  ascribed  to  them  of  transforming  the  Christian 
religion  into  philosophy,  or  making  philosophy  a  sub- 
stitute for  it:  rather  did  they  accept  the  religious 
faith  of  the  Church  as  the  established  basis  upon 
which  the  scientific  theologian  had  to  place  himself 
in  order  to  unfold  the  contents  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness by  the  aid  of  philosophy,  to  understand 
one  particular  in  connection  with  another,  and  thus 
to  gain  a  better  view  of  the  sense  and  meaning  of  the 
whole.  Nevertheless,  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  in 
consequence  of  the  dogmatic  controversies,  the  orig- 
inal religious  meaning  of  the  ecclesiastical  doctrines 
always  retreated  more  behind  the  formulas  artificially 
constructed  out  of  the  philosophical  and  juristic  con- 
ceptions of  the  schools.  Still  more  does  this  hold  true 
of  Scholasticism.  With  the  production  of  the  dogmas, 
the  understanding  of  their  religious  motives  had  also 
disappeared ;  only  the  petrified  product  had  remained 
— namely,  the  rigid  formulas  of  the  decrees  of  the 
Councils,  which  were  honoured  the  more  as  sacred 
relics  the  more  their  incomprehensibility  appeared  to 


74  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

point  to  a  higher  origin.  This  ecclesiastical  authority 
was  further  supplemented  in  the  twelfth  century  by 
that  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  the  knowledge  of 
which  had  been  learned  through  the  medium  of  the 
Arabs.  In  the  double  slavery  under  these  so  entirely 
heterogeneous  two  authorities,  and  in  the  despairing 
effort  to  be  equally  just  to  both,  the  scientific  power 
of  the  Middle  Ages  consumed  itself.  Faith,  corrupted 
by  the  false  knowledge  of  the  scholastics,  let  no  gen- 
uine knowledge  arise ;  and  it  held  the  mind  that  was 
thirsting  for  knowledge  in  such  hard  chains  that  it 
finally  despaired  of  even  being  able  to  know  anything. 
The  scholastic  theology,  which  aimed  at  rearing  up 
a  universal  science  on  the  basis  of  authority,  ended 
in  scepticism.  The  mixture  of  Biblical  religion  and 
Greco-Eoman  science,  which  was  what  the  Christian 
theology  had  been  through  all  the  centuries  of  the 
patristic  and  scholastic  periods,  however  useful  it 
might  have  been  as  an  educational  means  for  edu- 
cating the  peoples  still  in  their  pupilage,  became 
at  last  an  intolerable  fetter  for  faith  as  well  as  for 
knowledge. 

The  way  for  the  dissolution  of  this  false,  because 
unfree,  unity  of  religion  and  science  was  paved  on 
both  sides  by  the  reform  of  faith  which  proceeded  from 
Mysticism,  and  by  the  liberation  of  science  which  pro- 
ceeded from  the  renascence  of  antiquity.  This  mysti- 
cism, which  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  passed  into  more 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  75 

and  more  decided  opposition  to  scholasticism,  laid  the 
dogmas  and  their  dialectical  dissection  aside,  and  re- 
flected immediately  upon  the  object  itself — that  is,  on 
the  inner  religions  experience  of  the  pious  soul,  its  un- 
blessedness  in  separation  from  God,  and  its  blissfulness 
in  humble,  trustful  surrender  to  Him.  If  there  often 
arose  an  ascetic  tendency  from  this  mystic  piety,  yet  it 
was  always  characterised  by  its  inner  feeling  of  the 
love  of  God,  and  by  a  high  moral  earnestness  ;  and  out 
of  the  depth  of  this  religious  experience  there  proceeded 
in  the  case  of  individual  thinkers  (like  Meister  Eckart) 
an  original  theological  speculation,  which  was  far  re- 
moved from  the  dogmatism  of  the  school,  and  which 
was  typical  for  the  future.  It  is  well  known  how 
closely  the  Eeformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
connected  with  the  pre-Eeformation  mysticism.  Lu- 
ther was  himself  an  admirer  of  the  "  German  Theol- 
ogy," which  sprang  from  the  school  of  Eckart.  The 
Protestant  mystics  attached  themselves  immediately  to 
their  spiritual  kinsmen  of  the  pre-Eeformation  period, 
and  although  they  were  expelled  from  the  official 
Churches  of  the  Eeformation,  they  yet  preserved  the 
genuine  spirit  of  the  Eeformation  in  many  respects 
more  purely  than  these  Churches  themselves.  But 
the  ecclesiastical  theology  of  Protestantism,  from  the 
need  of  a  didactically  developed  system  of  faith,  re- 
turned again  to  the  old  dogmas ;  and  thus  there  soon 
again    arose    a    new    scholasticism,    which    at    least 


V6  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

equalled  the  old  scholasticism  in  its  want  of  freedom 
and  in  its  dry  formalism. 

Yet  these  partially  retrograde  currents  could  not 
keep  back  the  new  advance  of  non-theological  secular 
science  which  had  proceeded  from  the  impetus  of  the 
Renaissance.  While  the  theologians  were  still  busily 
employed  in  the  Churches  in  restoring  the  old  dogmas 
which  had  been  drawn  up  on  the  basis  of  the  Ptolemaic 
cosmology,  and  which  fitted  only  into  its  framework, 
this  cosmology  was  destroyed  by  Copernicus  and  sup- 
planted by  the  new  view  of  the  world  which  stands  in 
utter  contradiction  to  the  whole  of  the  system  of  the 
ecclesiastical  dogmatics  from  the  Creation  to  the  com- 
ing down  of  Christ  from  heaven  and  His  return  again, 
as  was  clearly  recognised  by  Melanchthon  much  more 
acutely  than  by  all  his  later  followers.  As  Astronomy 
attained  to  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the  motions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  so  did  physics  and  mechanics 
investigate  the  laws  of  the  terrestrial  world,  and 
mathematics  furnished  the  most  general  and  precise 
formula  for  the  results  of  observation  and  experiment. 
From  the  natural  sciences  and  mathematics  there  was 
thus  formed  the  conception  of  the  conformity  of  all 
that  happens  in  the  world  to  law.  Men  began  to  view 
"  Nature  "  as  an  ordered  whole,  in  which  all  particular 
being  and  happening  are  conditioned  by  their  causal 
connection  with  everything  else  by  immutable  laws. 
Spinoza  gave  this  thought  the  philosophical  foundation 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  77 

and  construction  by  which  it  became  the  principle  of 
that  universal  view  of  the  world  which  extends  far 
beyond  the  investigation  of   nature,  which  has  been 
designated  by  the  name  of  enlightenment  or  illuminism 
{AufUdrung),  and  which  is   essentially  homogeneous 
with  the  "positivism"  of  the  present  day.     How  far 
this  intellectual  view,  which  would  conceive  and  ex- 
plain everything  in  the  world  according  to  the  law  of 
causality,  lay  from  the  poetic  mythological  view,  to 
which  miracles,  and  the  interferences  of  higher  beings 
with  the  course  of  things,  had  been  things  natural  and 
self-evident!     This    self -intelligibility   of   the    super- 
natural and  miraculous,  which  was  still  regarded  as 
indubitable  by  the  thinkers  of  the  middle  ages  and  of 
the  period  of  the  Eeformation,  was  no  longer  possible 
from  the  time  of  the  eighteenth  century.     In  the  world 
of  experience  with  which  science  has  to  do,  there  could 
be  no  more  holding  of  miracles  as  events  which  were 
not  to  be  explained  by  the  orderly  causal  connection 
of  things  in  space  and  time.     The  attempt  was  there- 
fore first  made  to  limit  miracles  to  rare  exceptional 
cases  in  the  far  past,  which  were  to  be  believed  on  the 
ground  of  the  tradition  of  sacred  history.     But  what  if 
this  support  of  them  also  became  problematical  ?     And 
in  fact  there  sprang  up  a  second  opponent  to  ortho- 
doxy, and  not  the  least  dangerous  one,  in  historical  in- 
vestigation.    The  principle  of  the  necessary  connection 
of  causes  and  effects  being  also  applied  to  the  historical 


78  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

life  of  man,  there  arose  the  "  pragmatic  method/'  which 
sought  to  explain  historical  events  everywhere  from 
the  concurrence  of  individual  circumstances  and  mo- 
tives, and  put  in  place  of  the  intentions  of  Provi- 
dence the  intentions  of  the  acting  man  and  the  play 
of  accident.  Moreover,  in  the  school  of  humanistic 
science  students  had  now  grown  accustomed  to  careful 
investigation  of  sources,  and  to  criticism  of  the  docu- 
ments handed  down  from  the  past.  The  application  of 
this  method  to  the  sources  of  Biblical  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal history  led  to  the  beginnings  of  Biblical  criticism, 
which,  modest  as  they  were  at  the  outset,  yet  proved 
more  and  more  sufficient  to  shatter  the  foundation 
of  the  orthodox  dogmas,  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible. 
Thus  from  all  sides  there  accumulated  doubts  of  the 
possibility  and  reality  of  the  supernatural  and  miracu- 
lous as  such,  not  merely  in  the  experience  of  the 
present,  but  also  in  the  past  of  which  the  sacred 
history  treated. 

"What  was  to  become  of  faith  in  presence  of  this 
enljohtened  knowledge  ?  How  was  the  divine  still  to 
find  a  place  in  a  world  where  all  goes  on  naturally, 
where  everything  is  the  regular  effect  of  finite  causes  ? 
Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  mitigate  by 
reasonable  compromises  the  tension  of  this  antagon- 
ism, which  has  been  occupying  the  thinking  of  the 
Christian  world  for  now  about  two  centuries.  Such 
a   compromise   is   presented    in   the   sujn'a-Qucticralis^n 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  79 

that  proceeded  from  the  Leibnitz  -Wolffian  school, 
which  accepts  tlie  view  of  the  world  taken  by  the 
AufJddrung  in  general  with  regard  to  our  religious 
experience,  and  limits  miracles  to  individual  excep- 
tional cases,  in  which  the  order  of  nature  is  broken 
through  by  supernatural  omnipotence  for  the  sake 
of  higher  ends.  Such  miracles  were  represented  as 
having  been  necessary  in  their  time  as  means  of 
attesting  the  revelation,  which  indeed  did  not  pub- 
lish doctrines  contrary  to  reason  but  such  as  are 
above  reason — which  doctrines  we  have  to  hold  as 
true  on  the  basis  of  their  supernatural  attestation. 
Here,  then,  the  dogmas  are  supported  on  miracles, 
but  the  miracles  again  upon  the  supra-rational  dogma 
of  the  divine  omnipotence,  and  on  the  proof  of  its 
historical  reality  to  be  adduced  by  reason.  It  is 
evident  that  this  compromise  is  an  untenable  half- 
position,  which  can  neither  satisfy  faith  nor  know- 
ledge. It  cannot  satisfy  faith ;  for  faith  wishes  to 
find  the  divine  presence  and  activity,  not  merely  in 
rare  individual  events  but  everywhere  in  internal 
and  external  experience.  Kor  can  it  satisfy  know- 
ledge ;  for  reason,  when  it  has  once  become  conscious 
of  its  rioht  to  the  counition  of  truth,  will  nowhere 
let  a  boundary-line  be  drawn  where  it  has  to  cease 
to  examine  and  begin  blindly  to  believe.  Eeason 
can  only  co-ordinate  the  absolutely  supra-rational  and 
inconceivable  with  the   anti- rational,  which  it  must 


80  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

deny  unless  it  would  surrender  itself ;  and  in  par- 
ticular it  cannot  admit  that  nature  is  generally  a 
regular  order  of  events,  while  yet  this  order  is  broken 
in  individual  cases,  and  the  connection  of  what  exists 
in  space  and  time  is  dissolved  by  events  such  that 
the  conditions  holding  in  the  whole  of  the  world  of 
space  and  time  were  not  present  in  them.  It  is, 
therefore,  easily  conceivable  that  supra  -  naturalism, 
with  its  halfness  and  unclearness,  could  not  keep 
the  enlightened  rationalism  from  drawing  its  last 
consequences,  and  thinking  the  divine  away  out  of 
the  world  without  exception,  so  that  the  utterly 
empty  abstraction  of  the  "  Supreme  Being "  alone 
remained — a  Being  beyond  or  outside  of  the  world, 
and  without  active  revelation  in  it,  and  consequently 
without  religious  significance.  For  how  could  there 
be  possible  a  religious  relation,  a  feeling  of  one's  self 
as  dependent  and  also  as  exalted,  in  reference  to  a 
Being  of  whom  nothing  further  is  known  than  that 
He  is  what  is  beyond  the  world — a  negative  bound- 
ing conception  without  any  positive  cognisable  content, 
an  unmoving  secluded  Being  whose  activity  would  be 
annulled  by  finite  causes  and  put  to  rest,  which  there- 
fore would  enter  into  no  real  relation  to  us,  and  of 
which  we  would  never  experience  any  efficiency  at 
all  ?  An  enlightenment  which  in  this  way  makes 
God  an  empty  Being,  an  unknowable  essence,  cuts 
throuQ-h  the  vital  nerve  of  religion.     It  has  indeed 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  81 

been  said  that  if  the  objects  of  faith  can  no  longer 
be  held  to  be  proper  realities,  they  still  retain  their 
high  value  as  ideal   images   of   the  creative   fantasy, 
through  the  aesthetic  enjoyment  of  which  the  soul  is 
raised   above   the   common   reality  of   things,  and   is 
calmed  and  edified.     But  it  is  difficult  to  take  such 
consolation   as   meant   in   earnest ;    for   although   the 
pious  man  knows  well  that  the  highest  truth  which 
forms  the  content  of   his   faith   can   only  be   known 
and  expressed  by  him  in  figurative  form,  yet  all  the 
value  and  all  the  edifying  power  of  these  forms  rest 
for  him  just   on   the  fact  that  they  are  forms  of  a 
tme   content,   that   they   are   not   mere   inventions   or 
fictions  of  our  human   imagination,  but  are  the   ex- 
pression of  a  reality  which  is  not  only  as  true  as,  but 
even  truer  than,  that  of  the  world,  because  it  makes 
all  our  knowing  of  the  world  possible  and  authenti- 
cates its  truth.     Take  away  from  the  pious  man  this 
conviction   of   the   truth    contained   in   the   figurative 
language  of   religion,  the  conviction  of  the  objective 
reality  of  the  objects  of  his  faith,  and  let  these  ideal 
images  lose  for  him  all  earnest  significance,  how  would 
he  then  be  able   any  longer   to  worship  that  which 
he  has  now  recognised  as  a  form  of  his  own  creation  ? 
Such  a  strange   substitute   no   one  would   ever  have 
ventured  even  to  offer  as  a  compensation  for  the  de- 
vastation of  the  faith  effected  by  the  AirfUarung,  had 
it  been  considered — which  many  appear  to  have  for- 
VOL.  I.  F 


82  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

gotten  to-day  —  that  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  all 
religion  is  reverence,  that  reverence  is  only  possible 
for  what  is  above  us,  and  that  nothing  can  be  cibovc 
us  which  is  only  of  us,  or  is  only  the  self-produced 
form  of  our  subjective  thoughts,  wishes,  and  dreams. 

Now,  if  all  such  compromises  and  pretended  sub- 
stitutes are  insufficient,  what  then  does  there  remain 
to  religion  in  order  to  prevent  the  overthrow  of  its 
sanctuaries  by  the  knowledge  of  the  understanding? 
We  do  not  require  still  to  seek  for  the  answer  to 
this  question.  History  itself  has  long  since  given  it. 
The  same  weapon  which  inflicted  the  wound  has  also 
begun  again  to  heal  it.  The  thinking  which  sought 
to  conquer  the  world  and  subject  it  to  its  concep- 
tions in  this  process,  lost  God  and  its  own  self.  But 
when  it  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  it  profits  a 
man  nothing  though  he  should  gain  the  whole  world 
and  lose  his  own  soul,  it  then  began  to  go  into  itself 
and  to  reflect  about  itself.  And,  behold,  it  has  found 
again  in  its  own  inner  self  the  God  which  it  was 
no  longer  able  to  find  in  the  outer  world !  At  the 
end  of  the  last  century  there  was  repeated  the  same 
turn  of  thought  which  we  find  taking  place  in  Greece 
four  centuries  before  Christ.  The  superficial  think- 
ing of  the  AufJddrunr/,  which  clung  to  phenomena, 
was  overcome  by  the  deeper  self  -  reflection  of  the 
Platonic  philosophy,  which  found  in  the  essence  of 
the  spirit  the  ground  of  being  as   well  as  of  know- 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  83 

ledge,  the  source  and  the  rule  of  truth.  This  turn 
in  the  history  of  thought  appeared  decisively  in 
modern  times  in  the  critical  philosophy  of  Kant;  but 
it  was  prepared  by  Berkeley's  idealism  and  Hume's 
scepticism,  by  which  the  natural  realism  of  the  em- 
piricists had  been  overcome.  If  science  was  again 
to  find  a  positive  relation  to  religion,  it  must  first  of 
all  become  clear  regarding  its  own  principle.  That 
is,  it  must  have  recognised  the  one-sidedness  of  the 
two  opposite  principles  of  knowledge  —  namely,  that 
of  naive  natural  realism  or  empiricism,  and  that  of 
subjective  idealism  or  rationalism — and  it  must  have 
sought  their  synthesis  in  a  deeper  principle,  in  which 
the  point  of  contact  and  connection  with  religion 
will  at  the  same  time  be  found. 

Natural  realism  is  the  popular  opinion  that  our 
knowledge  of  things  is  given  to  us  simply  through  the 
perception  of  the  senses.  In  this  view  the  soul  is 
represented  as  like  an  unwritten  sheet  of  paper,  or 
as  a  photographic  plate,  on  which  things  make  copies 
of  themselves,  so  that  they  come  into  our  conscious- 
ness exactly  as  they  are  in  themselves.  But  Physics, 
Physiology,  and  Psychology  have  irrefutably  shown 
how  erroneous  this  popular  realism  is.  Sounds  do 
not  lie  in  the  vibrating  bodies,  or  in  the  waves  of  air 
which  proceed  from  them,  but  they  arise  first  in  our 
hearing  ear;  colours  do  not  lie  in  vibrations  of  the 
ether,  but  arise  only  in  our  seeing  eye ;  and  the  same 


84  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

holds  true  of  the  sensations  of  smell,  taste,  and  touch. 
But  even  extension  and  motion  depend  for  our  con- 
sciousness on  the  perception  of  space,  by  which  it  is 
easy  to  perceive  that  they  cannot  be  given  to  us  from 
without.     Just  as  little  as  the  nerves  of  the  eye,  can 
those  of  the  sense  of  touch  convey  into  our  conscious- 
ness spatial  copies  of  bodies  :  on  the  contrary,  the  spatial 
image  or  perception  can  only  be  sketched  by  the  self- 
activity  of  the  soul— on  the  ground,  it  is  true,  of  certain 
sio-ns  "iven  in  sensation.     But  if  spatial  extension  and 
form  are  just  as  subjective  as  colour,  sound,  and  smell, 
what  remains  of  the  material  world  of  bodies  ?    And  what 
right  have  we  then  still  to  hold  our  perceptions  to  be 
simple  copies  of  things  themselves  ?     Nay,  more,  what 
guarantee  have  we  for  holding  that  there  are  any  things 
outside  of  us  which  correspond  to  them  ?    What  ground 
have  we  for  determining  whether  our  representations 
are  not  merely  subjective?  and  whether  our  assump- 
tion of  an  existence  of  external  things  is  not  a  pure 
prejudice  sprung  from  the  conceptions  of  substantiality 
and  causality  which  have  been  arbitrarily  fashioned 
by  us  ?     With  this  conclusion  (which  was  drawn  in 
Hume's   scepticism)   the  world   of   the   senses,  which 
empirical  realism  had  held  to  be  the  complete — or  even 
the  only — reality,  became  an  unsubstantial  appearance 
or  phantasm,  a  chaos  of  impressions  and  representa- 
tions of  our  consciousness,  to  which  we  are  not  en- 
titled"* to   ascribe   either  reality,  or   substantiality,  or 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  85 

causality,  or  regulated  order  according  to  law,  and 
which  therefore  hardly  signify  more  than  do  the  illu- 
sions of  a  confused  dream.  This  was  the  natural  and 
inevitable  end  of  the  empirical  realism  which  made 
the  knowing  mind  the  passive  receiver  of  a  truth  given 
from  without. 

It  was  Kant's  merit  that  he  carried  back  the  truth 
of  cognition  to  the  laws  and  forms  of  our  thinking  and 
perceiving,  which  lie  originally  in  the  essence  of  the 
cognitive  mind,  and  which  are  therefore  universally 
valid.  But,  as  it  usually  happens  that  a  new  principle 
carries  its  just  opposition  to  the  old  principle  to  the 
excess  of  the  opposite  one-sidedness,  so  it  happened 
also  in  the  case  of  Kant.  He  started  from  the  alter- 
native that  our  conceptions  either  could  arrange  them- 
selves according  to  the  objects,  or  the  objects  according 
to  our  conceptions ;  and  since  the  first  view,  that  our 
conceptions  depend  on  the  objects,  was  the  opinion  of 
the  empiricism  which  had  dissolved  itself  in  scepti- 
cism, Kant  believed  that,  for  his  part,  he  could  only 
put  himself  on  the  opposite  side ;  and  he  set  up  the 
paradoxical  proposition  that  our  understanding  is  the 
lawgiver  of  nature — that  is  to  say,  in  so  far  as  nature 
consists  only  of  our  representations.  Only  to  this  do 
our  forms  of  thought,  according  to  Kant,  extend ;  but 
they  do  not  hold  good  of  things  in  themselves,  as  these 
are  independent  of  our  consciousness.  Taken  exactly, 
Kant   had  no  right  even  to  accept  the  existence  of 


86  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

things  out  of  our  consciousness,  seeing  that  this  view 
rests  upon  an  inference  of  causality,  while  causality 
should  not  be  accepted  as  valid  when  carried  beyond 
the  representations  of  our  consciousness  to  trans-sub- 
jective things.  With  this  position  the  Kantian  phil- 
osophy fell  into  subjective  idealism — which  it  does  not 
indeed  logically  maintain,  but  which  had  already  arisen 
as  a  consequence,  derived  from  Kant's  premises  by  his 
scholar  Fi  elite. 

But  suhjeetive  idealism  is  just  as  untenable  a  prin- 
ciple of  knowledge  as  empirical  realism.  If  I  can 
know  nothing  of  any  being  beyond  my  consciousness, 
then  the  reality  of  the  external  world,  inclusive  of 
other  men,  is  for  me  not  merely  a  doubtful  but  even 
a  worthless  hypothesis,  seeing  that  I  should  not  stand 
in  any  relation  with  that  which  exists  outside  of  me. 
Little  as  any  one  will  carry  out  "  Solipsism "  in  prac- 
tical earnest,  yet  it  is  just  as  certainly  the  theoretical 
consequence  of  subjective  idealism,  which  is  thereby 
already  reduced  ad  ahsurdiim.  But  subjective  idealism, 
moreover,  does  not  even  suffice  for  the  explanation  of 
our  inner  world  of  consciousness,  for  it  leaves  unex- 
plained whence  the  sensations  come  to  me  which  I  find 
as  given  facts ;  and  further,  what  distinguishes  the  real 
phenomena  of  my  waking  consciousness  from  images 
of  my  fantasy,  from  dreams  and  hallucinations  ?  It 
leaves  unexplained  why  I  cannot  proceed  arbitrarily 
in  combining  my  sensations  into  forms  of  perception 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  87 

in  space  and  time,  and  in  the  arrangement  of  my  repre- 
sentations according  to  logical  categories.  But  I  feel 
myself  bound  to  a  norm  or  rule,  in  the  violation  of 
which  I  fall  into  error.  On  the  ground  of  subjective 
idealism  there  could  properly  be  no  error  at  all ;  for, 
if  the  matter  of  the  sensations  somehow  given  is 
indifferent  to  the  forms  of  its  connection  brought  to 
it  by  the  autonomous  understanding,  there  is  no  norm 
for  the  application  of  the  various  logical  categories, 
and  then  there  is  also  no  abnormal  or  erroneous  ap- 
plication of  them  that  is  contrary  to  truth.  Nor  can 
this  difficulty  be  removed  by  appealing  to  the  corre- 
spondence of  the  judgments  of  one  individual  with 
those  of  others ;  for,  as  subjective  idealism  denies  the 
trans-subjective  relation  and  validity  of  thinking,  every 
Ego  accordingly  is  hermetically  shut  up  in  the  inner 
world  of  his  sole  consciousness  :  the  world  of  conscious- 
ness of  the  one  has  no  relations  at  all  with  the  world 
of  consciousness  of  others — which,  moreover,  is  but  a 
problematic  world ;  it  has  no  points  of  contact,  no 
common  means  of  finding  its  place  in  such  a  world: 
it  therefore  cannot  possibly  regulate  itself  according 
to  these ;  nor,  therefore,  can  it  have  in  agreement  with 
them  the  norm  and  control  of  its  own  correctness  or 
truth.  The  uselessness  of  subjective  idealism  as  a 
principle  of  knowledge  shows  itself  most  manifestly 
by  this,  that,  in  doing  away  with  every  norm  for  the 
recognition  of  truth,  it  also  makes  truth  itself  impos- 


88  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

sible.  For  there  can  only  be  truth  and  error  in  the 
judgment  of  the  subjects  where  these  know  them- 
selves to  be  bound  to  a  common  objective  norm,  to  a 
principle  of  logical  order  which  makes  itself  felt  within 
every  thinking  subject  as  a  binding  law  of  its  thinking, 
and  which  at  the  same  time  rises  above  the  distinc- 
tions of  all  thinking  subjects.  Only  the  universal  or 
divine  reason,  which,  as  the  ground  of  all  thinking  and 
being,  is  the  truth  in  itself,  can  also  be  the  norm  of  our 
knowledge  of  truth. 

We  have  thus  again  reached  a  result  with  regard  to 
our  true  knowing  similar  to  that  which  was  reached  in 
the  last  lecture  with  regard  to  our  true  willing  accord- 
ing to  duty.  As  the  ground  of  moral  obligation  was 
not  to  be  found  either  in  the  subject  or  in  society,  but 
only  in  the  universal  or  divine  will  that  combines  both, 
so  in  like  manner  the  ground  of  science,  or  of  cognition 
generally,  is  neither  to  be  found  in  the  subject  nor  in 
the  object  ;pcr  se,  but  only  in  the  divine  thinking  that 
combines  the  two,  which,  as  the  common  ground  of  the 
forms  of  thinking  in  all  thinking  minds,  and  of  the 
forms  of  being  in  all  beings,  makes  possible  the  corre- 
spondence or  agreement  between  the  former  and  the 
latter,  or  in  a  word,  makes  knowledge  of  truth  possible. 
As  morality  is  not  in  fact  dependent  in  such  a  way  on 
religion  that  certain  particular  duties  are  prescribed 
to  it  by  a  religious  authority,  yet  certainly  in  this 
sense  that  it  finds  the  ideal  principle  of  all  genuine 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  89 

moral  willing  and  doing  in  its  being  bound  to  the 
absolute  will  of  the  good,  or  of  God,  so  in  like  manner 
science  is  not  bound  in  any  individual  act  of  know- 
ledge to  religious  authority,  but  it  can  only  really  find 
the  ground  of  the  possibility  of  all  true  cognition  in  the 
fact  of  its  being  bound  to  the  creative  reason  which  is 
absolutely  the  truth.  In  this  thought  philosophical 
speculation  was  from  the  outset  at  one  with  religious 
mysticism.  "  In  Thy  light  do  we  see  light,"  says  the 
Psalmist.  According  to  St  John,  it  is  the  Divine  Logos 
who  enlightens  every  man ;  and,  according  to  St  Paul, 
the  Divine  Spirit  enables  man  even  to  know  the  deep 
things  of  God,  and  to  judge  everything  independently. 
It  is  also  a  good  Biblical  thought  that  our  knowing  of 
the  truth  stands  in  essentially  the  same  relation  as  our 
willing  of  the  good.  The  knowing  and  the  acting  mind 
are  not  at  all,  as  is  now  so  often  heard,  two  different 
kinds  of  minds,  but  are  only  two  forms  of  the  activity 
of  one  and  the  same  mind,  and  they  therefore  also 
stand  under  essentially  the  same  laws.  Neither  as 
knowing  nor  as  willing  can  our  mind  correctly  exercise 
itself  if  it  put  itself  apart  by  itself  and  shut  itself 
against  the  non-ego,  the  object,  or  society,  or  try  to 
raise  itself  above  them ;  for  then  it  will  either  remain 
void  of  content,  an  empty  form,  or  it  will  seek  its 
content  in  arbitrary  untrue  ideas  and  in  arbitrary 
ungood  ends.  Fantasticalness  and  libertinism  have 
been  often  the  offspring  of  subjective  idealism.     But, 


90  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

on  the  other  hand,  our  mind  can  neither  in  its  knowing 
nor  in  its  wilhng  receive  its  content  simply  from  the 
external  world;  it  would  thereby  cease  to  be  a  real 
mind,  a  self-activity,  and  it  would  become  the  thought- 
less receptacle  of  extraneous  dogmas  that  were  not 
understood,  and  the  unfree  instrument  of  an  alien  will. 
Our  mind  can  only  rightly  realise  its  essence  in  its 
thinking  and  willing  if  it  stands  in  orderly  reciprocal 
action  with  the  world  of  things  and  men,  if  it  sub- 
ordinates itself  in  activity  and  passivity,  in  giving  and 
taking,  as  a  serving  member  to  the  organic  order  of  the 
universe  in  which  the  divine  spirit  reveals  itself  as  one, 
and  yet  in  the  variety  of  many  gifts  and  powers. 

Hence  there  result,  regarding  the  relationship  of 
religion  and  science,  similar  consequences  as  in  the 
case  of  the  relationship  of  religion  and  morality.  With 
all  the  difference  in  their  immediate  objects,  religion 
and  science  still  hang  so  closely  together  in  their 
ground  and  aim  that  their  normal  relationship  will  not 
be  hostile  opposition,  but  friendly  mutual  completion, 
while  conflicts  will  only  arise  from  abnormal  tendencies 
and  malformations  of  one  or  the  other  or  both. 

It  may  appear  paradoxical  to  say  that  faith  lies  at 
the  basis  of  all  science,  yet  this  cannot  be  disputed. 
All  our  knowing  is  formed  from  sensations  and  acts  of 
thought  which  are  carried  on  within  our  soul,  and  yet 
we  believe  that  we  know  by  these  subjective  functions 
the  objective  world,  the  reality  which  exists  outside 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  91 

of  us.  This  universal  conviction  is  a  belief  which  rests, 
not  upon  logical  proofs,  but  upon  the  trust  that  our 
nature  is  so  constituted  that,  when  we  correctly  apply 
our  powers  of  knowledge,  we  are  not  mocked  by  empty 
delusions,  but  are  able  to  represent  the  reality  of  things 
in  thoughts.  But  this  involves  the  assumption  that  the 
real  is  also  constituted  for  being  thought  by  us,  or  that 
it  is  thinkable.  But  the  real  can  only  be  thinkable  if 
it  is  realised  thought,  a  thought  previously  thought, 
which  our  thinking  has  only  to  think  again.  There- 
fore the  real,  in  order  to  be  thinkable  for  us,  must  be 
the  realised  thought  of  the  creative  thinking  of  an 
eternal  divine  reason,  which  is  presented  to  our  cog- 
nitive thinking.  The  confidence,  therefore,  that  we,  in 
our  endeavour  to  know,  do  not  merely  move  in  subjec- 
tive illusions  and  dreams,  but  that  we  copy  the  reality 
in  our  thinking,  implicitly  includes  the  confidence  that 
the  reality  is  the  manifestation  of  the  creative  thoughts 
of  the  divine  reason.  Moreover,  let  us  not  forget  that 
the  assumption  of  the  uniformity  and  immutable  con- 
formity to  law  of  nature  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  scien- 
tific induction — an  assumption  which  is  manifestly  not 
to  be  proved,  and  which  therefore  can  only  be  accepted 
by  faith.  This,  however,  includes  in  itself  the  further 
assumption  that  the  whole  of  nature  is  ruled  by  a 
single  principle — and,  indeed,  since  laws  are  ideal  rela- 
tions, by  a  single  spiritual  principle,  an  ordering  reason. 
Hence,  rightly  viewed,  it  is  religious  belief  which  is 


92  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

presupposed  by  all  scientific  knowledge  as  the  basis  of 
its  possibility.  Naturally,  this  presupposition  need  not 
be  present  as  conscious  conviction  in  the  case  of  every 
one  who  cultivates  science :  just  as  little  as  in  the  case 
of  every  one  who  acts  morally  from  a  feeling  of  duty 
must  there  be  present  the  consciousness  of  his  being 
bound  by  the  universal  divine  will.  But  it  must 
always  still  remain  true  that  both  in  the  feeling  of 
duty,  and  also  in  reliance  on  the  truth  of  our  thinking, 
religious  belief  in  the  divine  ground  of  our  selves,  and 
of  the  world,  is  to  be  posited  implicitly  as  an  accom- 
panying presupposition.  To  raise  this  unconscious  as- 
sumption into  consciousness  is  the  task  of  the  philos- 
opher who  analyses  the  process  of  knowledge— that  is 
to  say,  in  so  far  as  he  actually  goes  down  to  the  founda- 
tion of  things,  and  does  not,  as  mostly  happens  in  the 
present  day,  stop  short  where  the  decisive  questions 
just  begin. 

As  science  rests  upon  a  belief,  the  actual,  although 
unconscious,  belief  in  a  world-ordering  divine  reason,  it 
also  finds  its  final  goal  only  in  the  thought  of  God.  Its 
proximate  goal  certainly  is  everywhere  the  connection 
and  ordering  of  the  manifold  facts  given  by  experience, 
the  finding  out  of  the  connection  between  phenomena 
and  of  the  laws  which  govern  the  different  groups  of 
phenomena.  In  doing  so,  as  long  as  it  merely  investi- 
gates the  connections  of  individual  things  in  a  limited 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  93 

sphere,  it  of  course  need  not  have  recourse  to  God,  who 
is  certainly  not  an  individual  substance  or  an  individ- 
ual cause  alongside  of  others ;  and  therefore  we  per- 
fectly understand  how  an  astronomer  like  Laplace  con- 
fessed that  he  did  not  need  the  hypothesis  of  a  God 
for  the  explanation  of  the  mechanism  of  the  heavenly 
bodies.  Yet  the  particular  groups  of  phenomena  with 
which  the  individual  sciences  have  to  do,  nevertheless 
do  not  stand  isolated  with  reference  to  each  other,  but 
they  are  all  connected  with  each  other.  Hence,  the 
knowledge  obtained  in  none  of  them  can  come  to  a 
final  satisfying  conclusion ;  it  always  points  beyond 
this  narrow  circle  to  a  wider  connection,  to  higher  laws, 
and  to  more  general  principles.  Now  it  is  the  task 
of  the  universal  science,  philosophy,  to  connect  the 
principles  of  the  individual  sciences  with  each  other, 
and,  by  carrying  them  back  to  one  universal  supreme 
principle,  to  seek  the  ultimate  conclusion  of  knowledge 
generally.  In  continuation  of  this  same  procedure, 
according  to  which  we  seek  everywhere  unknown 
causes  for  given  facts,  j)hilosophy  as  the  universal 
science  seeks  in  a  supreme  principle  the  hypothetical 
ground  for  the  explanation  of  the  universe  or  of  the 
world  as  such.  The  often-heard  assertion  that  it  there- 
by oversteps  its  bounds  is  a  prejudice  for  which  no  real 
grounds  can  be  adduced,  and  which  is  rather  explained 
as  arising  only  from  a  temporary  sceptical  discourage- 


94  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ment   and    weariness  of   scientific   thinking.     Sigwart 
says  admirably  at  the  close  of  his  '  Logic ' : — 

"  The  metaphysical  close  of  the  explanation  of  the  world 
forms  the  presupposition  without  which  no  desire  to  know 
in  the  proper  and  strict  sense  is  at  all  possible ;  it  goes 
beyond  the  facts  given  in  experience  in  no  other  direction 
than  every  attempt  to  conceive  what  is  given  as  fact  does  so. 
AVith  the  same  right  with  which  we  build  up  in  the  individ- 
ual substances  and  their  powers  an  intelligible  kingdom  as 
the  ground  of  phenomena,  and  pressed  by  the  same  impulse 
to  embrace  in  a  unity  what  is  dispersed,  we  also  take  a 
further  step  towards  an  ultimate  explanation  of  the  world, 
according  to  the  demands  or  obligations  of  our  thinking. 
What  separates  metaphysics  from  the  rest  of  science  is  not 
its  method,  for  method  in  regard  to  all  knowing  is  at  the 
last  absolutely  the  same  ;  it  is  only  the  universality  of  its 
task,  and  this  task  itself  is  as  necessary  as  that  of  knowing 
generally.  It  stands  at  the  beginning  of  all  science,  seeing 
that  it  brings  into  clearness  the  principles  which  all  scientific 
striving  presupposes  ;  it  stands  at  the  end  of  all  science, 
seeing  that  its  presuppositions  can  only  authenticate  them- 
selves by  the  result — viz.,  the  thorough-going  agreement  of 
all  knowledge.  Metaphysics  will  therefore  remain  a  work  of 
partial  knowledge,  as  all  knowing  is  knowing  in  part  so  long 
as  the  finite  thinking  has  not  expanded  and  raised  itself 
into  the  divine." 

Thus  far  it  has  also  been  already  indicated  that 
science,  in  its  attempt  to  find  a  final  philosophical 
explanation  of  the  existing  world,  never  will  nor  can 
reach  a  completely  satisfying  definitive  result.  We 
can  only  predicate  of  the  unconditioned  principle  of 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  95 

the  world  such  positive  determinations  as  we  have 
derived  from  the  world  of  our  experience,  be  it  natural, 
or  spiritual,  or  both.  But  these  predications  which 
spring  from  the  world  of  the  manifold  and  conditioned 
can  of  course  only  inadequately  designate  the  essence 
of  the  one  unconditioned  being ;  they  can  only  pass  as 
analogical  and  symbolical  determinations  which  would 
express  that  we  think  of  the  essence  of  the  basis  of 
the  world  as  being  in  a  certain,  yet  always  only  rel- 
ative, similarity  with  such  or  such  phenomena  of  our 
inner  or  outer  experience.  It  is  conceivable  that 
science,  when  oppressed  by  this  difficulty  in  the  deter- 
mination of  the  absolute  principle  of  the  world,  should 
often,  on  the  one  hand,  renounce  the  attempt  to  reach 
a  single  explanation  of  the  world,  and,  on  the  other, 
believe  that  it  must  be  contented  with  the  most  in- 
definite and  lowest  determinations  of  the  principle  of 
the  world,  such  as  being,  force,  matter,  motion,  and 
suchlike.  In  the  former  case  it  comes  to  no  deter- 
mination of  knowledge  at  all,  to  no  answer  to  the 
questions  as  to  the  Whence  and  "Whither  of  existence 
which  are  always  moving  men ;  and  thereby  all  par- 
ticular knowing  becomes  uncertain  and  doubtful,  the 
courage  of  the  inquirer  is  paralysed  by  doubt,  and  the 
energy  of  the  impulse  of  knowledge  is  tied  down.  In 
the  other  case  the  result  is  untrue  explanations  of  the 
world,  arising  from  insufficient  principles,  such  as 
materialism    and    positivism.      With   this    result   the 


96  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

higher  spheres  of  life  are  just  those  which  remain  inex- 
plicable ;  and,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  inexplicable, 
the  proper  character  and  significance  of  the  spiritual, 
moral,  and  religious  life  is  ignored,  and  everything  is 
reduced  to  the  level  of  the  lowest  physical  phenomena ; 
and  the  actual  world  is  therefore  not  explained,  but 
mutilated  and  distorted.  Materialistic  aberrations  and 
sceptical  distraction,  indifference,  want  of  intelligence 
for  the  great  connections  and  universal  ideas,  with 
a  pedantic  squandering  and  losing  of  one's  self  in  the 
most  minute  and  puny  matters — these  are  the  dangers 
which,  as  experience  shows,  threaten  science  in  times 
of  philosophical  disheartenment.  In  presence  of  such 
dangers  it  is  religion  which,  by  its  idea  of  God  as 
sprung  from  the  inner  experiences  of  the  soul  and 
corresponding  to  them,  always  sharpens  the  conscience 
anew,  and  rouses  it  to  strive  unweariedly  in  the  pro- 
secution of  its  highest  task  —  namely,  to  seek  for  a 
principle  for  the  explanation  of  the  world  which  will 
be  truly  and  universally  satisfying.  Not  that  science 
should  therefore  at  once  accept  the  religious  idea  of 
God  upon  authority,  and  employ  it  for  its  explanation 
of  the  world.  In  so  doing  it  would  but  too  easily 
overlook  its  proper  task  of  rising  step  by  step  from 
the  particular  and  gradually  approaching  the  ultimate 
principles  of  things,  and  it  would  lose  the  capacity  of 
proving  all  things,  even  the  religious  ideals,  and  holding 
fast  only  the  best  of  all.      But  science  will  certainly 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  97 

behold  in  the  religious  idea  of  God  the  symbolical 
anticipation  of  the  goal  to  which  it  has  itself  not  to 
soar  upon  the  wings  of  fantasy,  but  to  climb  along  the 
toilsome  and  endless  way  of  the  thinking  understand- 
ing. It  will  always  be  compelled  to  say  to  itself  that 
the  religious  spirit,  which  draws  its  highest  principle, 
not  from  the  wide  breadth  of  universal  experience,  but 
out  of  the  depths  of  the  inner  moral  -  religious  ex- 
perience, does  not  merely  as  such  belong  to  the  whole  of 
the  reality  which  is  to  be  explained,  but  that  it  occupies 
in  this  whole  the  very  highest  position  and  significance, 
so  that  consequently  every  explanation  of  the  world  is 
insufificient  and  erroneous  which  leaves  no  place  for 
these  highest  facts  of  experience,  and  which  stands 
in  contradiction  to  the  necessary  demands  of  the  moral- 
religious  spirit.  Eeligion,  therefore,  without  wishing 
to  impede  the  work  of  science  in  detail,  or  to  keep  it 
under  its  tutelage,  will  yet  be  regulative  with  regard  to 
science  in  so  far  as  it  sets  before  science  in  symbolical 
form  the  goal  which  it  must  keep  in  view  and  strive 
after  in  order  to  fulfil,  at  least  approximately,  its  task 
of  an  ultimate  explanation  of  the  world. 

That  which  is  a  task  for  science,  an  ideal  that  it  has 
always  to  strive  after  and  yet  will  never  completely 
attain — namely,  the  highest  Idea  of  Truth  that  com- 
pletes and  concludes  all  knowledge — is  possessed  by 
religion.  Eeligion,  however,  does  not  possess  it  in  the 
form  of  conceptual  knowledge  that  satisfies  the  scien- 

VOL.  I.  G 


98  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

tific  thiuldug,  but  in  the  form  corresponding  to  the 
presentient  soul,  of  the  symbol  or  of  the  significant 
sign.  Hence  religion  needs  for  the  correct  interpreta- 
tion of  its  signs  the  completing  and  correcting  help 
of  science,  just  as  much  as  science  needs  religion. 
So  long  as  the  forms  in  which  the  religious  spirit 
objectifies  its  inner  experiences  to  itself  are  yet 
transparent  enough  to  let  their  inner  real  sense  be 
recognised,  and  so  long  as  they  still  remain  in  har- 
mony with  the  universal  view  of  the  world,  so  long 
will  they  not  be  felt  as  an  impediment,  but  will  serve 
religious  elevation  as  its  natural  means.  But  when 
the  creative  power  of  the  religious  spirit  dries  up,  its 
forms  and  faith  are  then  wont  to  become  petrified,  and 
what  was  at  the  beginning  a  transparent  veil  of  truth 
becomes  then  a  hard  covering  behind  which  the  spiritual 
content  is  so  concealed  that  it  is  hardly  longer  recog- 
nisable by  any  one.  What  at  the  beginning  was  only 
a  means,  then  becomes  an  end  in  itself ;  what  at  the 
beginning  was  the  expression  of  a  really  present  com- 
mon belief,  then  becomes  a  compulsory  yoke,  which 
produces  a  mere  external  uniformity  of  confession  by 
the  subjection  of  men's  minds  to  a  formula  that  is  not 
understood.  And  if  at  the  same  time  the  general  con- 
sciousness of  the  world  in  the  course  of  the  advance 
of  civilisation  experiences  such  profound  transforma- 
tions as  has  been  the  case  with  the  Christian  peoples 
since  the  awakening  of  the   sciences   of   nature   and 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  99 

history,  then  the  contradiction  between  the  old  believed 
notions  that  rest  upon  quite  other  assumptions  and 
the  present  knowledge  becomes  more  and  more  glar- 
ing, and  doubt  of  the  truth  of  the  traditional  dogmas 
always  rises  up  more  earnestly,  and  with  it  doubt  of 
the  truth  of  the  religion  which  men  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  identify  with  those  dogmas.  In  this  state  of 
matters  some  put  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  secular 
knowledge  or  even  of  the  latest  and  boldest  hypotheses 
which  are  given  out  as  science,  and  they  triumphant- 
ly proclaim  the  near  end  of  religion,  having  no  pre- 
sentiment that  religion,  as  well  as  science  and  art, 
morals  and  law,  is  a  constitutive  element  of  human 
nature,  and  therefore  may  pass  through  the  most  mani- 
fold developments,  but  can  never  cease  as  long  as  there 
are  men.  On  the  other  hand,  others  put  themselves 
on  the  side  of  religion,  defend  all  its  traditional 
doctrines  and  dogmas  as  ostensibly  infallible  divine 
revelations,  and  combat  with  all  the  weapons  at  their 
command  the  results  of  science  as  a  vain  delusion  in- 
vented and  diffused  by  bad  men.  Thus  the  antagonism 
between  faith  and  knowledge  has  become  so  acute  at 
the  present  day,  that  many  despair  of  any  possibility  of 
a  reconciliation  and  mediation  of  them. 

According  to  what  has  been  now  said,  we  do  not  see 
ourselves  compelled  to  share  this  pessimistic  view  of 
the  situation.  Eather  are  we  of  opinion  that  a  little 
calm  self-reflection  would  only  be  needed  on  both  sides 


100  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

to  recognise  that  both  parties  stand  in  their  ultimate 
aims  much  nearer  than  is  supposed,  and  that  there  is 
much  more  reason  for  them  to   learn  mutually  from 
each  other  than  to   exhaust  their  powers  in  a  blind 
conflict.     Science,  as  we  saw,  will  have  to  remember 
that  its  acceptance  of  the  knowableness  of  the  world, 
if  it  is  not  to  be  without  a  principle  at  all,  can  only 
be  supported  on  a  behef  in  the  creative  divine  reason 
in  which  the  agreement  of  the  forms  of  thinking  and 
being  is  grounded,  and  in  which  consequently  the  truth 
of  our  thinking  is  guaranteed.     It  will  have  to  recall 
the  fact  that  the  world  of  nature  or  of  external  sensible 
phenomena,  the  investigation  of  which  it  pursues  with 
so  much  zeal  and  success,  is  nevertheless  only  the  one 
side  of  reality,  along  with  which  consists  the  inner 
side  of  our  own  psychological  life  as  the  much  more 
important  half  of  reality  ;    and  therefore  that  an  ex- 
planation of  the  world  which  would  ignore  this  more 
important  side,  and  which  would  take  the  principle  of 
the  universe  only  from  the  external  world  of  pheno- 
mena, would  commit  the  most  prodigious  abstraction, 
and,  in  spite  of  all  fortunate  discoveries  in  detail,  would 
yet  at  bottom  miss  the  truth  on  the  whole.     On  the 
other  side,  the  representatives  of  religion  will  also  have 
to  remember  that  they  possess  the  treasure  of  spiritual 
truth  always  only  in  earthen  vessels — that  is,  in  symboli- 
cal representations — on  which  their  earthly  and  temporal 
origin  is  but  too  clearly  impressed  for  them  to  be  able 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  101 

to  put  forth  a  permanent  claim  to  infallible  divine 
truth  ;  and  consequently  that  the  striving  of  the  think- 
ing mind  to  distino-uish  between  the  eternal  truth  and 
its  temporal  vesture,  between  the  spiritual  kernel  and 
its  sensible  shell,  is  not  an  act  of  sacrilege,  but  a  service 
which  is  performed  for  the  sacred  cause  of  truth,  and 
therefore  of  God.     It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  this 
service  of  truth  is  not  accomplished  without  pain  and 
sacrifice,  when  so  many  ideas  that  have  become  dear 
prove  themselves  to  be  but  perishable  earthly  vessels ; 
but  these  pains  are  the  price  to  be  paid  for  obtaining 
the  most  precious  of  treasures — namely,  a  conviction 
which  establishes  the  heart.     Piety  will  lose  nothing  of 
its  humility  and  trust  if  it  perceives  the  governing  of 
divine  omnipotence  no  longer  in  rare  supernatural  in- 
cidents but  in  the  whole  constant  order  of  nature,  and 
if  single  spots  of  history  are  no  longer  to  be  separated 
out  as  the  sanctuaries  of  a  unique  mysterious  revelation, 
but  the  whole  development  of  the  moral  and  religious 
life  of  humanity  becomes  the  revelation  of  educating 
wisdom  and  love.     If  science  helps  religion  to  attain  to 
this  deepening  of  its  insight  and  widening  of  its  view, 
ought  it  not  then  to  be  rather  treasured  as  a  friend  of 
religion  instead  of  being  feared  as  its  foe  ?    At  the  pres- 
ent time,  indeed,  the  two  still  stand  in  a  state  of  violent 
feud ;  but  the  time  will  come  when  they  will  mutually 
understand  each  other  better,  and  will  be  united  in  the 
harmonious  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 


LECTUKE    IV. 

THE  BELIEF   IN   GOD:   ITS   ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT. 

Kant  has  said  that  there  are  especially  two  things 
which  excite  our  reverence :  the  starry  heaven  above 
us,  and  the  moral  law  within  us.  He  has  thus  indi- 
cated the  two  sources  from  which  the  belief  in  God 
springs — namely,  the  external  world  in  so  far  as  it 
shows  to  our  thinking  a  rational  order  of  existing  be- 
ing, an  all-embracing  truth ;  and  the  internal  world  in 
so  far  as  in  it  a  rational  order  of  being  that-ought-to- 
be  presses  itself  upon  us  as  an  all-determining  end, 
or  the  ideal  of  the  good.  That  the  good  which  we 
oppose  to  actuality  as  that  which  ought  to  be,  is  yet 
not  merely  our  subjective  thought,  a  dream  of  our 
imagination,  but  that  it  is  that  which  truly  is,  the 
power  that  is  over  reality;  and  that  the  principle  of 
the  whole  external  existence  is  not  alien  and  indifferent 
to  the  ideal  longing  and  hoping  of  our  own  being,  but 
is  the  source  of  its  motive  power  and  the  guarantee  of 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  103 

its  right  to  realisation, — this  is  the  kernel  of  the  belief 
in  God.  The  idea  of  God  is  the  Unity  of  the  True 
and  the  Good,  or  of  the  two  highest  ideas  which  our 
reason  thinks  as  theoretical  reason  and  demands  as 
practical  reason ;  and  if  reason  is  not  to  lose  its  unity, 
and  therefore  itself,  in  this  antagonism  between  know- 
ing of  the  real  and  demanding  of  the  ideal,  it  must  raise 
itself  above  the  opposition  to  the  synthesis  of  the  two 
sides,  or  to  the  idea  of  God.  This  is  the  a  priori 
ground  or  rational  origin  of  the  belief  in  God  found  in 
the  nature  of  our  mind. 

It  is  of  course  evident  of  itself  that  this  principle, 
as  we  have  here  expressed  it,  was  not  from  the  very 
beginning  in  the  consciousness  of  men  ;  for,  in  order  to 
think  ideas,  reason  must  already  be  developed,  which 
in  the  first  of  mankind  it  could  just  as  little  be  as  in 
children.  This,  however,  does  not  exclude  the  fact 
that  there  was  from  the  beginning  the  unconscious 
rational  impulse  which  lay  at  the  basis  of  the  forma- 
tion of  the  belief  in  God,  however  manifold  may  have 
been  the  direct  motives  which  co-operated  with  it. 
All  traces  of  the  oldest  history  of  rehgion  point  to 
this,  that  the  belief  in  God  did  not  exist  ready-made 
from  the  beginning,  but  that  it  was  formed  out  of  the 
prehistorical  belief  in  spirits  contemporaneously  with 
the  beginnings  of  social  civilisation,  on  the  threshold 
of  the  historical  life  of  the  peoples.  And  the  original 
belief  in  spirits  appears  already  to  point  back  to  two 


104  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

sources — to  external  nature  and  the  soul  of  man.  For 
ancestral  sjnrits  and  nature- spirits  are  found  every- 
where in  the  primeval  period  of  the  peoples  side  by 
side  with  one  another,  and  passing  into  each  other  in 
various  forms  of  combination  without  the  one  being- 
able  to  be  referred  to  the  other.  They  appear  to  be 
both  equally  original,  and  to  be  explained  by  different 
psychological  motives. 

Various  naive  reflections  may  have  contributed  to 
the  universally  diffused  belief  of  the  primitive  men 
in  the  continued  existence  and  active  presence  of  the 
souls  of  the  dead.  When  they  saw  life  disappear  in 
the  dying  with  the  fleeting  breath,  it  was  natural  to 
find  the  principle  of  life,  or  the  soul,  in  the  breath; 
and  hence  in  most  languages  the  words  for  Soul  and 
Spirit  coincide  with  the  designations  for  Breath  and 
Wind.  But  that  the  soul  that  flees  with  the  breath 
does  not  perish,  but  only  changes  its  place  of  residence, 
was  testified  to  primitive  man  by  his  dream-percep- 
tions, in  which  he  saw  the  dead  again  appear.  From 
this  he  concluded  that  they  continued  to  live  as  aeri- 
form shadowy  beings,  usually  invisible,  and  that  they 
moved  more  rapidly  than  when  they  lived  in  the  body, 
penetrated  everywhere,  and  were  superior  in  knowledge 
and  capability  to  earthly  men.  The  incorporeal  double 
of  the  dead  person  could,  according  to  the  primitive 
belief,  assume  the  most  different  and  most  frightful 
forms;   it  could  work   at  a  distance,  transport  itself 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  105 

with  the  swiftness  of  lightning  to  other  places,  and 
could  otherwise  produce  wonderful  effects  beyond  the 
measure  of  what  is  natural  to  mankind.  Besides,  the 
spirits  of  ancestors  remained,  according  to  the  oldest 
view,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  families  they  had 
left  behind,  and  in  constant  relation  with  them ;  they 
claimed  a  share  of  the  daily  meals  and  other  marks 
of  honour ;  they  rewarded  such  performances  by  the 
protection  of  their  kin ;  and  they  punislied  the  neglect 
of  these  things  by  sensible  evils. 

But  the  spirit-host  believed  in  by  primitive  men  was 
recruited  not  merely  from  the  world  of  men,  but  also 
from  that  of  nature.  The  intermediate  link  between 
the  human  souls  and  those  with  which  the  untutored 
fancy  peopled  nature  may  have  been  formed  by  the 
souls  of  animals,  the  worship  of  which  played  a  great 
part  in  Egypt,  and  which  are  even  now  objects  of 
worship  among  savage  tribes.  In  everything  which 
moves  on  earth  or  in  the  heavens,  and  which  con- 
sequently appears  to  live,  the  primitive  man  beheld 
an  active  soul  as  the  subject  and  cause  of  the  respec- 
tive movements.  Fountains,  rivers  and  seas,  trees  and 
woods,  winds  and  waves,  and  in  particular  also  the 
earthly  fire  of  the  hearth  and  the  heavenly  fire  of  the 
storm,  and  finally  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  and  the 
heaven  that  embraces  all, — all  these  appeared  to  the 
naive  fantasy  as  living  beings,  because  its  "  personify- 
ing apperception"  was  able  to  apprehend  the  subject 


106  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

of  phenomena  only  as  an  active  subject  after  the 
analogy  of  the  human  soul.  This  animation  of  nature 
is  not  to  be  explained  by  holding  that  the  primitive  man 
only  compared  natural  phenomena  with  living  beings, 
or  even  that  he  merely  thought  of  them  as  a  domicile 
or  operation  of  spirits  of  human  origin.  Either  view 
would  presuppose  a  definite  distinguishing  of  the 
sensible  element  and  of  the  supersensible  subject ;  but 
such  a  distinction  only  appeared  later,  whereas,  for  the 
original  mythological  notion,  the  sensible  element  and 
the  subject  that  was  active  in  it  still  coincided  as  one. 
It  is  only  on  this  view  that  all  those  names,  attributes, 
and  myths  of  the  natural  Deities  are  explained,  which 
manifestly  have  their  roots  in  natural  phenomena.  I 
can  therefore  not  agree  with  those  who,  after  the 
example  of  the  ancient  rationalist  Euhemeros,  would 
explain  the  natural  Deities  from  elevation  of  ancestral 
spirits  to  be  rulers  over  earthly  and  heavenly  regions — 
a  view  which  is  advocated,  for  instance,  by  Mr  Herbert 
Spencer.  I  believe  that  they  explain  themselves  more 
simply,  without  going  round  about  by  human  souls,  from 
the  animation  of  nature,  which  was  just  as  natural  for 
the  childlike  fantasy  of  the  primitive  man  as  it  still 
is  to-day  for  children  and  poets.  Only  so  much  may 
perhaps  be  admitted,  that  for  the  more  definite  personi- 
fications of  the  nature-spirits,  for  their  separation  from 
the  element  of  nature,  and  their  elevation  to  be  the 
objects  of  a  standing  and  common  cult,  the  undoubt- 


THE  BELIEF  IN   GOD.  107 

edly  more  original  cult  of  ancestral  spirits  may  have 
co-operated. 

Nevertheless  this  prehistoric  belief  in  spirits  cannot 
yet  be  properly  called  religion;  it  only  contained  the 
germs  of  religion.  The  development  of  these  germs, 
however,  could  not  be  reached  before  the  beginnings  of 
social  organisation  and  order.  So  long  as  men  still 
lived  in  roaming  hordes  without  social  organisation, 
there  was  also  still  merely  an  indefinite  swarm  of 
spirits  without  individual  qualities,  only  perhaps  that 
the  friendly  spirits  were  distinguished  from  the  hostile 
(light  spirits  from  dark  spirits).  It  was  not  till 
families  gathered  around  the  domestic  altar  (the 
hearth)  as  settled  households,  till  these  families  ex- 
panded into  clans,  and  till  the  clans  united  into  tribes, 
that  there  also  arose  out  of  the  swarm  of  common 
spirits  the  Gods  proper  as  the  protecting  powers  of 
the  corresponding  groups  of  human  society.  And 
with  these  groups  there  also  grew  at  the  same  time 
their  ideal  representatives,  the  divine  patron  spirits  or 
tutelary  genii.  The  families  had  only  their  narrowly 
limited  house-gods  ;  the  religion  of  the  clans  and  tribes 
rose  to  the  worship  of  higher  common  tutelary  Deities, — 
whether  it  was  that  the  ancestral  spirit  of  a  prominent 
family,  of  a  chief,  or  of  the  founder  of  a  city,  rose  to 
the  rank  of  a  common  God  of  the  people,  or  that  the 
local  cult  of  a  nature- spirit  became  the  connecting 
centre  for  a  greater  group  of  the  surrounding  dwellers. 


108  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  thereby  the  (elementary)  tutelary  spirit  of  the 
place  was  transformed  into  the  tutelary  spirit  of  the 
community  of  the  region  and  into  the  founder  of  their 
state,  and  was  identified  with  a  tribal  hero  or  put  into 
genealogical  connection  with  one.  Thus  there  arose 
out  of  the  deification  of  ancestral  spirits  and  the 
humanisation  of  nature-spirits,  the  world  of  the  Gods 
of  the  several  national  religions.  In  the  case  of  many 
of  these  mythical  forms  it  will  always  remain  obscure 
how  they  fashioned  themselves  in  the  consciousness  of 
their  votaries, — whether  by  a  nature-spirit,  to  which  a 
certain  place  was  sacred,  becoming  the  tutelary  God  of 
the  settlers  on  his  territory,  and  thus  becoming  their 
Hcros  eponymus,  or  by  a  historical  ancestor  with  the 
growing  power  of  his  clan  being  raised  to  be  the  ruler 
also  of  their  natural  surroundings,  of  the  land,  sea,  and 
sky.  So  much  appears  at  all  events  to  be  certain  (as 
it  is  put  in  the  words  of  Goblet  d'Alviella),  "  that  in 
the  classical  mythology  there  is  found  a  continual 
interaction  between  the  Gods  and  heroes :  if  Gods 
are  represented  as  glorified  men,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  glorified  men  also  come  to  be  regarded  as 
Gods." 

With  the  elevation  of  the  tutelary  spirits  of  definite 
social  human  groups  above  the  other  spirits,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  religious  belief  in  Gods  was  made.  An 
organised  Polytheism,  however,  was  not  yet  reached 
everywhere,  but  this  only  came  about  in  those  peoples 


THE  BELIEF  IN   GOD.  109 

who  attained  to  a  certain  degree  of  culture  and  a  last- 
ing political  unity.     Ideas  of  a  divine  hierarchy  de- 
veloped themselves   everywhere  pari  passu  with  the 
improvement  of  the  earthly  political  institution.     And 
men  were  also  quite  conscious  of  this  parallelism  be- 
tween the  heavenly  and  earthly  kingdom,  but  by  a 
natural    perspective   deception   they  always   held   the 
human  community  to  be  a  copy  of  the  heavenly.     But 
what    distinguishes    these    Gods    of    the   Polytheistic 
national  religions  from  the  spirits,  is  not  merely  the 
greater  power  and  dominion  attributed  to  them,  but 
also  a  new  and  higher  content  and  purpose  of  their 
life :  they  are  the  bearers,  founders,  and  preservers  of 
the  world-order — not  only  of  the  natural,  but  also  of 
the  moral,  order  of  the  world.     The  spirits  worshipped 
by  savage  tribes  are  individual  powers  which  act  by 
caprice   and   chance,  which   combat  with  each    other, 
perish,  and  are  supplanted  by  new  spirits.     The  sava- 
ges are  never  sure  that  the  sun  which  sets  to-day  will 
appear  again  to-morrow,  or  that  the  summer  which  is 
now  overcome  by  the  giant  winter  will  return  again 
next  year.     As  their  own  life  is  still  driven  on  without 
content  and  purpose  by  momentary  impulses,  so  also  is 
it  with  the  life  of  their  swarms  of  spirits.     The  higher 
belief,  and  properly  the  first  religious  belief  in  Gods, 
has  been  gained  from  two  sides — from  the  formation 
of  a  social  order   among  men,  and  from   intellectual 
reflection    upon   the   order   of   things   in   the    life   of 


no  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

nature,   which   both   co-operated   to  bring   about   the 
same  result. 

Because  the  beginnings  of  all  social  orders  and 
practices,  from  the  government  of  the  house  up  to 
the  government  of  the  State,  had  been  essentially 
formed  under  the  influence  of  religious  motives,  it 
was  inevitable  that  the  Gods  should  be  thought  of  as 
the  founders  and  protectors  of  these  orders  and  prac- 
tices :  not  that  they  had  from  the  very  beginning 
also  represented  moral  ideals  of  a  universal  kind — 
for  such  were  not  yet  known  to  primitive  men,  nor 
could  they  therefore  ascribe  them  to  their  Gods — 
but  they  were  certainly  the  representatives  of  the 
abiding  collective  will  and  the  common  wellbeing  of 
the  community  of  their  worshippers.  Accordingly, 
every  violation  of  this  whole  or  of  its  individual 
members,  by  which  the  existence  and  wellbeing  of 
the  family,  the  tribe,  and  the  people  is  violated,  is  at 
the  same  time  a  trespass  against  the  divine  power 
that  protects  this  community.  Hence  in  the  primi- 
tive States  the  administration  of  justice  stood  every- 
where in  closest  connection  with  religion.  The  social 
obligations  were  strengthened  by  the  oath,  the  ap- 
peal to  divine  witnesses  and  avengers ;  and  the  Gods 
aided  the  discovery  of  criminals  by  oracles  or  divine 
judgments,  which  played  everywhere  an  important 
part  in  times  of  crude  administration  of  law.  The 
expiation    of    a    crime    by   punishment    or   voluntary 


THE  BELIEF  IX  GOD.  Ill 

restitution  is  everywhere  at  the  same  time  a  religious 
expiation  for  the  reconciliation  of  the  offended  Deity. 
Now  the  more  this  rational  side  of  the  divine  gov- 
ernment, directed  to  the  good  of  the  moral  order 
of  the  human  community,  gained  in  significance  for 
practical  piety  and  took  precedence  over  its  physical 
working,  so  much  the  more  was  it  also  necessary 
for  the  representation  of  the  personal  character  of 
the  Gods  to  be  put  into  harmony  with  their  social 
governing  for  the  common  advantage.  Men  began  to 
represent  the  protecting  powers  of  society  as  types 
of  the  qualities  valued  in  society,  and  consequently 
to  represent  them  as  moral  ideals;  not  of  course  in 
the  sense  which  vje  are  wont  to  connect  with  a  moral 
ideal,  but  in  the  sense  that  the  existing  ideas  of 
human  ability  held  by  the  peoples  were  personified 
in  the  Gods  themselves.  In  particular,  the  artistic 
fantasy  of  the  Greeks  succeeded  in  developing  their 
Gods  into  ideals  of  that  KoXoKayadla,  of  that  beauti- 
ful morality  of  symmetry,  of  the  harmonious  balance 
of  reason  and  morality,  in  which  they  beheld  the 
ideal  of  human  virtue.  It  is  certainly  not  to  be 
thought  that  this  higher  representation  of  the  moral 
being  of  the  Deity  was  anywhere  the  universal  popu- 
lar view;  it  was,  in  fact,  everywhere  originally  only 
present  in  the  knowledge  of  individual  enlightened 
men,  and  had  to  assert  itself  laboriously  in  constant 
conflict  ag-ainst  the  cruder  ideas  of  the  mass  of  the 


112  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

people.  It  is  well  known  how  keenly  the  Greek 
philosophers,  from  Heraclitus  and  Xenophanes,  pro- 
tested against  the  immoral  representations  of  the 
national  religion.  And  around  what  else  did  the 
struggle  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  against  the  obtuse- 
ness  of  the  crowd  turn  than  just  the  opposition  between 
the  moral  conception  of  the  Deity  and  the  naturalistic 
mythological  conception  ?  Perhaps  we  may  see  in 
this  opposition  the  proper  turning  -  point  of  the  his- 
tory of  religion,  even  more  than  in  the  question  about 
the  unity  or  plurality  of  the  divine,  which  indeed  is 
connected  with  it,  although  the  two  do  not  quite 
coincide. 

In  two  respects  the  awaking  reflection  on  the  order 
of  nature  has  been  of  great  importance  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  belief  in  God,  side  by  side  with 
the  progress  of  the  social  order.  When  men  began 
to  reflect  upon  the  regularity  in  the  succession  of 
the  times  of  the  day  and  year,  and  their  connection 
with  the  motion  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  the  thought 
could  not  but  press  itself  upon  them  that  the  powers 
which  rule  in  nature  do  not  act  according  to  arbi- 
trariness and  caprice,  but  that  they  stand,  just  like 
men,  under  a  constant  and  common  order.  This  order 
they  could  then  refer  either  to  the  prescription  of  a 
supreme  God  standing  above  nature,  or  to  the  reign 
of  law  indwelling  in  the  universe  itself,  which,  as  a 
universal  power  above  the  individual  Gods,  was  partly 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  113 

personified  in  particular  genii,  and  partly  expressed  in 
abstract  conceptions.  The  Egyptian  Maat,  daughter  of 
the  sun-god  Ea,  and  the  Persian  genius  Asha  Vahista 
were  personifications  of  the  natural  and  moral  order 
of  the  world ;  and  for  the  same  thought  the  Hindus 
had  the  impersonal  conceptions  Eita  and  Karma,  the 
Greeks  had  Molpa  and  Ne/jueaa,  and  the  Chinese  had 
Tao.  In  so  far  as  by  all  these  expressions  there  was 
designated  a  world-ruling  power  superior  to  the  many 
individual  Gods,  there  is  clearly  betrayed  the  con- 
sciousness that  the  many  Gods  are  not  yet  the  highest, 
that  the  really  divine  still  lies  above  them ;  and  this 
therefore  shows  a  Monotheistic  tendency.  The  tran- 
sition to  Monotheism  has,  however,  been  made  in 
two  different  ways,  which  led  to  different  conceptions 
of  the  Monotheistic  thought  of  God.  The  one  of  these 
ways  which  was  taken  by  the  Hindus  and  the  Greeks 
proceeds  from  the  phenomena  of  nature,  and  leads 
through  continued  abstraction  and  generalisation  to  a 
single  substance  and  universal  law,  or  to  Pantheism; 
the  other  way  proceeds  from  the  limited  national  God, 
and  leads  through  the  expansion  of  his  sphere  of 
power  and  the  moralisation  of  his  nature  to  ethical 
Theism,  the  classical  representatives  of  which  have 
been  the  prophets  of  Israel. 

It  is  quite  conceivable  that  a  people  disposed  for 
philosophical  reflection,  like  the  Hindus  and  Greeks, 
may  have  come  early  to  the  thought  that  the  many 

VOL.  I.  H 


114  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Nature-Gods  were  only  different  forms  of  the  mani- 
festation of  one  and  the  same  divine  Being ;  but  it 
is  also  conceivable  that  the  propensity  to  abstraction 
and  generalisation,  when  once  awakened,  could  not 
come  to  rest  before  it  had  resolved  the  manifold 
manifestations  into  the  unity  of  a  universal  Being 
which,  because  all  distinctions  have  been  obliterated 
in  it,  is  only  an  empty  indeterminate  abstract  Being 
which  is  hardly  distinguished  from  nothing.  Certainly 
it  was  a  step  in  the  progress  of  the  religious  spirit 
that  the  Deity  was  no  longer  thought  of  as  a  finite 
object  along  with  other  objects,  but  that  the  thought 
of  infinitude,  of  opposition  to  all  limited  worldly  ex- 
istence, was  taken  up  in  earnest.  -  But  the  infinite 
was  still  conceived  of  in  a  one-sidedly  negative  way, 
in  the  Brahmanic  and  Eleatic  speculation,  as  the  abyss 
which  swallows  up  all  finite  being,  not  as  the  positive 
ground  which  produces  and  maintains  the  finite.  The 
Brahma  of  the  Vedanta  philosophy,  like  the  one  in- 
finite Being  of  Parmenides,  is  like  the  cave  of  the 
lion,  into  which  all  the  footsteps  lead,  but  none  lead 
out  again.  If  the  true  is  only  the  most  abstract  dis- 
tinctionless  and  changeless  Being,  then  the  world  of 
manifold  and  changeable  existence  is  an  untrue  ap- 
pearance, a  delusion  of  Maya,  which  indeed  becomes 
the  more  inconceivable,  seeing  that  the  subject  and 
its  consciousness — for  which  the  appearance  of  the 
manifold  and  chanoeable  exists — has  itself   also    but 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  115 

an  apparent  existence  like  everything  else.  Thus  does 
the  Pantheism  of  the  absolute  substance  show  itself 
as  Akosmism,  and  ultimately  as  absolute  Illusionism. 
As  in  this  infinite  there  disappear  with  all  other  dis- 
tinctions also  the  distinctions  of  true  and  false,  of 
weal  and  woe,  of  good  and  bad,  the  religious  disposition 
can  here  only  consist  in  indolent  brooding  over  the 
nothingness  of  existence,  in  indifference  to  all  the 
interests  of  life,  and  finally  in  the  extinguishing  of 
the  living  will  itself — "Nirvana." 

While  the  Indian  mind  had  lost  itself  in  the  mazes 
of  Pantheism,  Akosmism,  and  Illusionism,  the  more 
energetic  thinking  of  the  Greeks  was  happily  able  to 
overcome  this  stage  of  transition,  and  to  rise  to  a  view 
of  God  and  the  world  which  was  destined  to  be  of  the 
greatest  importance  for  the  religious  development  of 
humanity.  Plato,  like  the  Eleatic  philosophy,  had  also 
distinguished  between  the  world  of  sense,  which  is 
only  apparent  reality,  and  the  "  really  real,"  which  is 
elevated  above  space  and  time.  But  this  really  real 
being,  according  to  Plato,  is  not,  as  with  the  Eleatics, 
an  abstract  unity  that  excludes  all  distinctions,  and 
consequently  also  all  thinking,  but  it  is  a  world  of 
thoughts,  the  plurality  of  which  is  unified  by  inner 
necessity  into  a  harmonious  whole ;  and  thus  it  forms 
the  world  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good. 
This  world  of  ideas  is  embraced  into  a  unity  in  the 
highest  Idea,  the  Idea  of  God,  which  at  the  same  time 


116  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

is  perfect  being.  In  God  (the  divine  reason)  there  lies 
not  only  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  knowing  and  being, 
or  of  all  truth,  but  also  the  ultimate  end  of  all  being,  or 
the  good.  That  God's  essential  being  is  the  good,  that 
all  statements  regarding  God  are  to  be  measured  by 
the  idea  of  the  good,  and  that  He  is  therefore  as  much 
the  ground  of  justice  in  the  moral  world  as  of  truth  and 
beauty  in  the  natural  world,— these  are  central  thoughts 
of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  the  high  historical  signifi- 
cance and  abiding  truth  of  which  stand  fast,  although 
it  may  also  have  to  be  recognised  that  its  original  intui- 
tions were  still  affected  with  the  limits  of  the  Greek 
thinking.  It  was  a  lofty  idealism  which  saw  in  the 
world  the  revelation  of  a  divine  reason,  a  system  of 
archetypal  ideas,  wdiich  the  human  spirit  represents 
in  its  knowledge  of  truth.  But  this  idealism  had  still 
as  its  reverse  side  the  dualism  between  the  Idea  and 
the  irrational  reality,  which  is  not  the  pure  expression 
of  the  Idea,  but  stands  in  partial  opposition  to  it. 
For,  when  the  Ideas  enter  into  manifestation  they 
are  drawn  out  of  one  another  into  the  dividedness  of 
space  and  time,  and  are  thus  as  it  were  displaced  and 
distorted.  The  sensible  world  is  therefore  only  the 
imperfect  obscured  representation  or  copy  of  the  pure 
world  of  true  being,  or  of  the  Ideas.  The  cause  of  this 
imperfectness  is  the  irrational  principle  of  the  "un- 
bounded" or  of  exteriority  and  succession  in  time,  a 
principle  which  is  properly  a  non-existing  being,  /ir)  6v  ; 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  117 

but  as  the  contributory  cause  of  the  world  of  appear- 
ance it  yet  again  becomes  a  negative  quantity,  a  matter 
adverse  to  the  Idea,  which  hinders  the  pure  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Idea.  With  this  division  of  the  ideal  and 
sensible  world  a  mediation  of  the  two  was  needed,  and 
this  was  found  by  Plato  in  the  soul  of  the  world  and 
of  man  which  stands  in  the  middle  between  reason 
and  sense.  These  thoughts,  the  opposition  of  the 
two  worlds  and  their  mediation  through  a  middle  prin- 
ciple, became  of  immense  importance  for  the  following 
time.  But  they  have  their  root  in  Plato  in  this  posi- 
tion, that  the  spirit,  when  it  began  to  reflect  upon  itself, 
was  at  first  conscious  only  of  its  distinction  from  the 
external  world,  but  not  yet  of  its  autocratic  power 
over  it ;  and  this,  again,  is  connected  with  the  fact  that 
it  apprehended  its  specific  nature  first  in  thinking,  and 
not  in  moral  willing,  that  it  recognised  as  its  task  only 
the  copying  the  given  harmony  of  the  world,  and  not 
the  free  shaping  of  the  world  and  realising  of  its  own 
ideal  in  tlie  world.  It  is  the  Greek  Intellectualism 
and  ^stheticism,  the  want  of  ethical  depth  and  power, 
which  forms  the  limit  of  the  Platonic  idealism  and  the 
ground  of  that  dualism  which  does  not  let  the  Divine 
Spirit  come  to  full  lordship  over  the  real  world.  The 
same  dualism  may  be  also  observed  in  the  philosophy 
of  Aristotle.  He,  indeed,  finds  everywhere  in  the 
world  rational  purposes  (thoughts  of  final  ends)  as 
the  working  "  Porm  "  of  things  ;  but  this  rational  prin- 


118  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ciple  has  always  to  combat  with  the  irrational  principle 
of  matter  which  is  contrary  to  purpose  and  conception, 
and  its  resistance  is  never  entirely  to  be  overcome. 
According  to  Aristotle,  God  is  pure  Form  without 
matter,  pure  activity  without  passivity  and  change ; 
but  such  Form  is  only  pure  thinking,  which  again 
has  only  itself  as  its  content.  As  this  activity  of 
thought  which  persists  in  itself  {vor^aL'i  vot]aeco'i),  God 
is  separated  from  the  world  which  is  mixed  up  of 
activity  and  passivity ;  He  is  indeed  the  self-unmoved 
cause  of  the  motion  of  the  world,  in  so  far  as  the 
imperfect  strives  after  His  perfectness,  but  He  does 
not  rule  over  it,  and  He  does  not  come  to  revelation 
in  it.  As  the  philosophical  thinker  after  Aristotle 
felt  himself  in  the  consciousness  of  his  higher  dignity 
exalted  above  the  cares  of  the  practical  life,  so,  accord- 
ing to  him,  God  is  infinitely  exalted  in  the  stillness 
of  His  eternal  unchangeable  thinking  above  the  world 
of  becoming,  of  striving,  and  of  struggling,  in  nature 
and  humanity,  which  is  a  world  full  of  change  and 
suffering.  This  philosophical  transcendence  was  com- 
bined by  the  Epicureans  with  the  popular  Polytheism 
in  such  a  way  that  they  thought  of  the  regions  inter- 
mediate between  heaven  and  earth  as  inhabited  by 
Gods,  who  lead  by  themselves  a  cheerful  life  of  enjoy- 
ment without  troubling  themselves  in  any  way  about 
earthly  things  and  the  affairs  of  men.  Tlie  Stoics,  on 
the  other  hand,  went  back  again  to  the  world-soul  of 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  119 

the  Ionic  philosophy  of  nature;  they  thought  of  the 
Deity  partly  as  the  primal  material  of  the  world,  the 
fire   out  of  which  all   proceeded   and   into  which  all 
again   returns,   and   partly   as    the   world -reason,   the 
Logos  which  guides  and  orders  all,  the  all-wise  Provi- 
dence.    This  latter  side  became  so  very  predominant 
among  the  later  Stoics  that  their  conception  of  God, 
which    at  the    beginning  was   more   of   a  naturalistic 
Pantheistic  character,  always  approached  more  to  an 
immanent  ethical  Monotheism.     But  as  the  Stoics  did 
not  wish  wholly  to  lose  touch  with  the  mythological 
faith  of  the  people,  they  received  into  their  system  the 
national  Gods  as  the  subordinate  forms  of  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  one  Deity,  or  as  Its  ministering  organs.    The 
same  was  also  done  by  the  Neo-Platonists,  who  needed 
these  half-divine  middle  beings  ("  demons  ")  the  more 
urgently  as   they   carried   the    Platonico  -  Aristotelian 
view  of  the  Deity  as  belonging  to  a  world  beyond  this 
to  its  utmost  issue;   they  divested  the   Deity  of   all 
positive  attributes,  and  made  It  a  wholly  incognisable 
Being  which,  inaccessible  to  clear  thinking,  can  only 
be  felt  by  ecstatic  feeling.     As  the  ancient  philosophy 
thus  ended  with  Agnosticism,  it  was  indeed  able  to 
further  the  dissolution  of  the  mythological  Polytheism, 
but  it  could  put  nothing  positive  that  could  satisfy  the 
religious  feeling  in  place  of  the  old.   The  substitute  for  the 
old  belief  in  God  could  only  be  formed  by  the  new  faith 
which  had  developed  itself  out  of  the  religion  of  Israel. 


120  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

The  belief  of  the  Hebrews  in  their  tribal  God  Jahve 
had  in  the  pre-prophetic  time  hardly  yet  distinguished 
itself  clearly  from  the  analogous  belief  of  the  other 
Semitic  tribes  in  their  tribal  Deities.  The  belief  was 
first  brought  to  a  higher  development  by  the  prophets, 
who  raised  the  tribal  God  of  Israel  to  be  the  God  of  the 
world,  by  identifying  Him  with  the  moral  good  in  the 
same  way  as  Plato  did  some  centuries  later,  and  by 
thinking  of  His  government  as  an  exhibition  of  holy 
justice,  which  has  only  the  good  itself  as  its  end,  and 
which  does  not  let  itself  be  determined  by  any  partial 
collateral  considerations,  not  even  by  those  which 
related  to  national  privileges.  To  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phets Jehovah  indeed  always  remained  the  God  of 
Israel  in  a  peculiar  sense,  but  His  government  of  the 
world  had  nevertheless  a  universal  end,  which  passed 
beyond  the  national  limits  and  was  unconditionally 
valuable  in  itself ;  and  this  end  it  had  to  realise  in  the 
establishment  of  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace 
in  Israel,  and  from  Israel  outwards  in  mankind  gener- 
ally. The  prophets,  while  believing  in  the  victory  of 
this  moral  end  of  the  divine  government  of  the  world, 
also  already  looked  with  hope  to  the  time  when  the 
God  of  this  moral  government  would  be  the  only  God 
of  all  the  peoples.  Besides,  it  was  favourable  to  the 
religion  of  Israel  that  a  Polytheistic  mythology,  already 
deeply  rooted  in  the  fantasy  of  the  people,  did  not  stand 
here  opposed  to  the  higher  moral  idea  of  God,  as  was 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  121 

the  case  among  the   Indians  and  Greeks.      Even  the 
anthropomorphic  traits,  which  were  by  no  means  want- 
ing in  the  belief  in  Jahve,  were   however  not  of  the 
same   kind  as  in  the  more  sensuous  Polytheistic  re- 
ligions.    No  such  myths  were  told  of  Jahve  as  of  Zeus 
and  Jupiter.     If  the  popular  belief  ascribed  passions  to 
Jahve,  such  as  wrath  and  jealousy,  it  was  not  difficult 
for  the  prophets  to  interpret  these  passions  morally  as 
the  reaction  of  the  holy  God  against  the  human  sin  and 
guilt  which  resisted  His  purpose  of  good.     Such  moral 
anger  and  punishment,  however,  does  not  exclude  the 
faithfulness  and  long-suffering  of  God  in  carrying  out 
His  good  purpose,  but  it  serves  the  realisation  of  the 
moral  ideal  by  means  of  the  chastisement  and  purifica- 
tion of  the  sinful  people.     From  this  point  of  view  the 
history  of  their  people  became  to  the  prophets  the  ad- 
vancing revelation  of  the  educating  wisdom  and  justice 
and  grace  of  their  God,  who  also  holds  the  fortunes  of 
nations  in  His  hand  and  guides  them  to  the  final  end 
of  realising  His  all-embracing  kingdom,  in  which  right- 
eousness, peace,  and  salvation  will  reign.      Nor  could 
the  misfortunes  in  their  experience  disconcert  the  pro- 
phets in  this  faith  in  the  moral  teleology  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world ;  for  all  the  adversity  of  the  present 
only  turned  their  hopeful  look  further  away  and  higher 
towards  the  much  more  glorious  ideals  of  the  future. 
In  the  consciousness  of  the  prophets,  God,  just  because 
He  was  one  with  the  moral  Ideal,  became  the  God  of 


122  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  historical  revelation,  the  Lord  of  the  times  and 
seasons,  who  in  His  decrees  disposes  of  all  that  is  in 
the  future.  The  Hebrew  did  not,  like  the  Greek,  find 
the  revelation  of  God  in  the  harmony  of  an  ideal  world 
of  thoughts  which  was  always  immanent  in  the  actual, 
but  he  found  that  revelation  in  the  purposive  striving 
of  the  whole  of  history,  in  which  all  that  is  actual  is 
continually  transcended  and  directed  by  the  ideal  of 
the  future. 

In  the  spirit  of  the  great  prophets  the  two  sides  of 
the  thought  of  God  were  combined  in  the  closest  way — 
namely,  the  exaltation  of  the  holy  One  above  human 
weakness  and  sin,  and  the  condescension  of  the  gracious 
One  to  a  helpful  presence.  But  in  the  post-exilian 
Judaism  the  first  side  of  the  Idea  predominated  so 
strongly,  that  God  was  then  thought  of  almost  only  as 
a  lawgiver  and  a  judge  in  the  other  world,  and  men 
could  only  see  His  revelation  in  humanity  mediated 
through  middle  beings  like  the  angels  and  the  personi- 
fied Wisdom,  or  the  personified  Word.  Judaism  had 
therefore  at  last  arrived  at  the  same  dualistic  tran- 
scendence of  the  Deity  as  the  Platonic  idealism  ;  and 
thus  the  same  need  showed  itself  on  both  sides  to  fill 
up  the  gulf  between  this  world  and  the  world  beyond 
by  intermediate  beings.  The  religious  philosophy  of 
the  Alexandrian  Jew  Philo  was  a  product  of  these  con- 
verging currents  of  the  time.  According  to  Philo,  God 
is  not  merely  not  to  be  thought  of  in  an  anthropomor- 


TEE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  123 

phic  way  as  like  men,  but  He  is  without  attributes  at 
all,  and  exalted  above  all  conceptions  and  names ;  we 
can  only  know  of  Him  that  He  is,  not  what  He  is ;  we 
can  only  call  Him  the  existing  One  and  the  cause  of  all 
being.  His  working  upon  the  world  is  not  immediate, 
but  is  mediated  through  other  powers  which  are  em- 
braced in  the  divine  "  Logos."  This  Logos  is  the  image 
and  the  first-born  Son  of  God,  the  ideal  of  the  world, 
and  the  Mediator  of  its  creation  and  government,  and 
of  all  the  revelation  of  God  in  sacred  history.  This 
shadowy  form  of  the  Philonic  Logos,  which  wavers 
between  conceptual  abstraction  and  personality,  could 
naturally  not  suffice  to  satisfy  the  religious  need  of  a 
real  historical  revelation  of  God;  but  its  great  his- 
torical significance  consisted  in  this,  that  it  prepared 
the  conceptual  form  for  the  theological  apprehension 
and  expression  of  the  new  revelation  in  Jesus  Christ. 

Jesus  recognised  in  the  God  of  the  prophets  and  of 
the  Psalms  his  heavenly  Father  and  the  heavenly 
Father  of  us  all,  who  makes  His  sun  rise  on  the  just 
and  the  unjust,  who  condescends  to  the  miserable  and 
sinners  in  compassionate  love  in  order  to  make  them 
His  children  and  associates  of  His  kingdom,  the  imi- 
tators and  instruments  of  His  own  holy  love.  The 
God-consciousness  of  Jesus  was  not  indeed  a  Hellenic 
cheerful  consciousness,  as  has  been  said ;  his  God  was 
rather  the  holy  One  of  Israel  infinitely  exalted  above 
the  sinful  beings  of  the  world.     The  requirements  of 


124  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

His  will  were  not  lowered  by  Jesus,  but  were 
raised  into  a  demand  for  the  surrender  of  the 
whole  man  to  the  one  unconditioned  purpose  of  God ; 
and  the  essence  of  the  kingdom  of  God  has  been  set 
forth  by  him  in  sharpest  contrast  to  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  and  their  glory,  which  must  be  re- 
nounced by  whoever  would  win  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
But  while  Jesus  maintained  the  religious  ideal  in  its 
unconditioned  exaltedness  and  purified  it,  on  the  other 
hand  he  at  the  same  time  bridged  over  the  gulf  which 
had  opened  up  to  the  whole  ancient  world,  Jewish  as 
well  as  Greek,  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual,  the 
good  and  the  true.  To  him  the  holy  God  was  not 
merely  the  exacting  lawgiver,  the  reckoning  Lord,  the 
retributive  judge,  but  He  was  above  all  the  loving 
Father,  who  sees  in  every  man  His  cliild,  the  object  of 
His  merciful  care  and  wise  training,  the  God  who  does 
not  even  cast  out  and  condemn  the  sinner,  but  who 
will  and  can  save  him,  deliver  him  from  his  sin,  and 
raise  him  to  the  good.  The  good  is  indeed  the 
Ideal,  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  not  yet  actually 
here,  but  has  yet  "  to  come  "  and  be  actual ;  yet  this 
Ideal  is  already  an  internal  efficient  present  power,  the 
power  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  who  drives  demons  out  of 
souls ;  the  power  of  faith  and  hoping  trust,  which  re- 
moves mountains ;  and  the  power  of  love,  which  by 
serving  and  bearing  overcomes  the  evil  of  the  world 
and  unites  men  into  a  harmonious  family  of  God.     In 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  125 

the  religious  idealism  of  Jesus,  God  is  therefore  not 
merely  the  perfect  ideal  of  the  good,  but  also  the  self- 
realising  power  of  the  good,  on  which  every  resistance 
of  the  world  must  ultimately  break  in  pieces,  and  which 
therefore  shows  itself  the  superior  power  over  reality 
as  the  true  kernel  of  being.  The  synthesis  of  the  good 
and  true  was  for  the  first  time  realised  in  full  depth 
and  with  clear  consciousness  in  Jesus'  Idea  of  God; 
and  therefore  it  is  rightly  accepted  by  us  as  the  highest 
revelation  of  God  which  still  remains  authoritative, 
however  much  the  unfolding  of  it  in  conceptions  and 
its  mediation  with  secular  truth  may  always  remain 
the  inexhaustible  problem  of  the  religious  thinking  of 
humanity. 

With  this  revelation  of  God,  which  had  become  per- 
sonal life  in  Jesus,  the  national  limitedness  and  the 
legal  externality  of  the  Jewish  belief  in  God  were  over- 
come. The  God  of  the  prophets  could  now  become  in 
the  missionary  preaching  of  Paul  the  world-reconciling 
God  of  the  world  of  the  nations ;  and  in  the  mysticism 
of  John  it  became  the  love  which  makes  its  dwelling 
in  the  hearts  of  the  pious,  and  unites  them  into  a 
fellowship  of  brethren  and  of  true  worshippers  of  God. 
It  was  natural  that  this  new  belief  in  God  should  seek 
after  new  forms  of  expression,  and  should  express  the 
fulness  of  its  contents  in  the  language  of  the  philo- 
sophical thinking  of  that  time.  The  Philonic  concep- 
tion of  the  Logos  presented  itself  as  the  most  natural 


126  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

means  for  accomplishing  this.  By  its  application  to 
the  revelation  of  God  which  had  appeared  in  Jesus,  the 
alliance  between  Jewish  theology  and  Greek  philosophy 
was  concluded,  and  from  it  the  doctrine  of  God  of  the 
Christian  Church  proceeded.  The  historical  purposive- 
ness  of  this  doctrinal  development  cannot  be  contested 
even  by  those  who  by  no  means  hold  its  doctrinal 
formulas  as  final  truth.  This  development  rests  upon 
two  grounds.  On  the  one  hand,  by  combination  with 
the  Logos  of  speculation  the  religious  revelation  of 
Jesus  was  divested  of  its  accidental  historical  invest- 
ments, such  as  lay  in  the  national  and  apocalyptic  idea 
of  the  Messiah,  which  the  earliest  Christians  had  shared 
with  the  Jews,  as  appears  from  their  expectation  of  a 
visible  second  coming  of  Christ  from  heaven  to  establish 
His  kingdom  upon  earth ;  and  thus  what  was  con- 
tingent and  particular  in  the  historical  beginning  be- 
came idealised  and  universalised  by  being  fitted  as  a 
completing  member  into  the  frame  of  the  universal 
revelation  of  God  as  it  advanced  through  universal 
history.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  metaphysical 
conception  of  the  Logos  as  immanent  in  the  world,  and 
ordering  it  according  to  law,  was  filled  with  religious 
and  moral  contents ;  and  thus  by  its  connection  with 
the  person  of  the  founder  of  the  historical  Church,  the 
Logos,  from  being  a  cosmical  principle  of  nature, 
became  a  religious  principle  of  salvation,  the  ideal  of 
the  good  which  is  present  and  active  in  the  community, 


THE  BELIEF  IN   GOD.  127 

the  personified  idea  of  the  man  who  came  from  God 
and  who  is  united  with  God.  Thus  in  the  Christian 
Idea  of  God  these  two  sides  have  been  combined  from 
the  beginning  —  the  moral-religious  ideal  of  the  an- 
thropomorphically  represented  holy  Lord  and  merciful 
Father— which  ideal  sprang  from  the  prophetic  and 
apostoHc  jDreaching;  and  the  metaphysical  principle, 
which  sprang  from  the  Greek  speculation  of  the  infinite 
Spirit  exalted  above  all  human  hmitation,  the  ground 
of  the  existence  and  of  the  order  of  the  universe,  in 
whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  To 
mediate  internally  these  two  sides  of  the  Christian  idea 
of  God  was  the  problem  of  the  Patristic  theology,  and 
it  also  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  formuhe  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  in  which  we  can  see  the  attempt  to 
connect  the  Greek  and  Jewish  cognition  of  God  in  a 
higher  synthesis,  and  to  guard  against  all  deviations  to 
the  one  side  or  the  other. 

For  the  mediation  of  these  two  sides  the  whole 
further  history  of  Christian  theology  and  philosophy 
has  laboured,  and  naturally  the  one  side  has  come  into 
the  foreground  at  one  time,  and  the  other  at  another. 
The  Greek  fathers,  especially  the  Alexandrians  Clem- 
ent and  Origen,  emphasised  the  absolute  spirituality  of 
God  in  opposition  not  merely  to  all  heathen  and  gnostic 
Naturalism,  but  also  to  the  Jewish  Anthropomorphism. 
According  to  the  profound  theologian  Clement,  God  is 
incognisable  as  regards  His  essence  in  Itself,  because 


128  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

He  is  elevated  above  all  finite  properties;  but  He  is 
cognisable  according  to  His  revelation  in  the  Logos  as 
the  principle  both  of  the  natural  order  of  the  world 
and  also  of  the  historical  religious  institution  of  salva- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  Tertullian,  a  father  of  the 
Western  Church,  could  not  think  of  God  realistically 
and  humanly  enough,  so  much  so  that  he  had  even  no 
hesitation  is  ascribing  a  body  to  God,  seeing  that,  as  he 
thought,  there  is  nothing  actual  that  is  incorporeal.  A 
remarkable  combination  of  the  two  sides  referred  to  is 
contained  in  the  theology  of  the  great  Church  father 
Augustine.  From  the  Neo- Platonic  standpoint  with 
which  he  began,  he  taught  the  abstract  simplicity  of 
the  divine  essence,  in  which  all  qualities  are  annulled 
into  an  indifference,  so  that  one  can  more  easily  say 
what  God  is  not  than  what  He  is.  Yet  the  three  fun- 
damental determinations — absolute  being,  knowing,  and 
loving — are  predicated  of  God ;  but  these,  again,  are 
identical  with  each  other.  As  absolute  Being  and 
Knowing,  God,  according  to  Augustine,  who  in  this  fol- 
lows Plato,  is  the  "  eternal  truth,"  the  ground  and  goal 
of  our  knowing;  as  Love,  He  is  the  "unchangeable 
good,"  the  true  object  of  our  willing  in  so  far  as  we  are 
determined  to  His  fellowship,  and  can  therefore  find  no 
satisfaction  in  any  finite  good.  If  these  determinations 
in  some  measure  already  go  beyond  the  presupposed 
absolute  simplicity  of  the  divine  essence,  there  cannot 
be  broudit  at  all  into  accordance  with  it  what  Augustine 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  129 

has  taught  concerning  the  double  decree  of  God,  or  His 
will  of  election  and  reprobation.  It  is  the  Jewish 
Monotheism  which  breaks  forth  in  this  hard  represen- 
tation of  God's  judicial  attitude  towards  the  fall  of 
Adam,  and  in  so  glaring  a  manner  as  could  hardly 
have  been  considered  possible  in  the  case  of  a  disciple 
of  Plato.  Nevertheless,  Augustine,  with  the  two  sides 
of  his  contradictory  doctrine  of  God,  became  none  the 
less  authoritative  for  the  ecclesiastical  theology ;  and 
not  only  for  the  medieval  theology,  but  also  for  the 
Protestant  theology,  which  has  never  liberated  itself 
from  this  contradiction  which  lies  within  its  doctrine 
of  God. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  monistic  (metaphysical)  idea 
of  God  had  remained  limited  to  individual  mystic- 
speculative  thinkers  (Scotus  Erigena,  Meister  Eckart, 
the  author  of  the  '  German  Theology ').  The  same 
idea  was  carried  out  in  the  seventeenth  century  with 
great  boldness  by  Spinoza.  In  opposition  to  all  an- 
thropomorphic Theism,  he  taught  that  God  is  the  only 
independent  self-existing  being,  or  the  absolute  sub- 
stance which  presents  itself  to  our  thinking  under  the 
two  fundamental  forms  of  reality  as  Thinking  and 
Extension,  and  out  of  which  all  things  and  souls  pro- 
ceed with  purposeless  necessity  as  the  finite  modes  of 
the  manifestation  {modi)  of  its  infinite  being.  This 
doctrine  did  not  deserve  the  objection  of  Atheism 
which  has  been  often  advanced  against  it ;    it  might 

VOL.  I.  I 


130  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

much  rather  be  called  Akosniism,  as  it  appears  to 
merge  the  reality  of  the  finite  in  the  one  substance  of 
the  infinite.  But  its  serious  weakness  is  the  total  lack 
of  the  conception  of  purpose  or  end,  whereby  a  fatal- 
istic and  naturalistic  character  threatens  to  come  into 
this  Pantheism,  which  becomes  fatal  to  the  religious 
consciousness.  If  everything  proceeds  with  the  same 
necessity  from  God,  and  if  there  is  not  a  development 
from  lower  to  higher  modes  of  existence,  if  all  that 
happens  is  only  causally  conditioned  and  not  guided 
by  final  causes  nor  striving  after  ends, — then,  along 
with  all  the  other  distinctions  of  worth,  the  moral  dis- 
tinctions also  fall  away ;  the  Idea  of  the  Good,  the 
ideal  of  what  ought  to  be,  becomes  fiction  and  illu- 
sion, and  there  remains  nothing  more  for  man  but  to 
renounce  all  and  every  moral  ideal,  and  the  highest 
moral  ideals,  and  to  submit  to  the  unchangeable  neces- 
sity of  being  and  event.  Of  this  nature  also  is  the 
piety  to  which,  according  to  Spinoza,  we  are  to  attain 
through  our  knowing  the  order  of  the  world  as  conform- 
able to  law.  But  as  certainly  as  spiritual  elevation 
belongs  to  religion,  just  as  certain  is  it  that  such  ele- 
vation as  we  find  in  Spinoza's  system  is  not  yet  really 
religious.  For  elevation  presupposes  an  ideal  which 
stands  above  reality,  and  hence  a  God  can  never 
satisfy  the  religious  consciousness  who,  like  the  God 
of  Spinoza,  would  only  be  the  ground  of  being  and 
not  also  of  the  being  that-ought-to-be, — who  would  be 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  131 

only  the  highest  truth  for  the  theoretical  spirit  and 
not  also  the  highest  good  for  the  moral  spirit.  But 
notwithstanding  this,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Spin- 
oza's struggle  against  the  popular  anthropomorphic 
representation  of  God  as  a  limited  individual  Being, 
who  pursues  His  own  particular  purposes  according 
to  caprice  and  arbitrariness,  was  well  founded.  He 
thereby  emphasised  with  great  resoluteness  a  side  of 
the  religious  Idea  of  God  which  is  but  too  easily  for- 
gotten in  the  popular  religion,  but  in  doing  so  he  fell 
into  the  opposite  one-sidedness. 

'  To  the  Pantheism  of  Spinoza  Leibnitz  opposed  the 
Theistic  conception  of  God.  God  is,  according  to  Leib- 
nitz, the  founder  of  the  harmony  of  all  individual  beings 
or  monads,  which,  being  without  connection  in  them- 
selves, have  been  brought  only  by  God  into  that 
ordered  connection  whereby  they  form  the  best  of  all 
possible  worlds.  Hence  God  must  be  thought  of  as  the 
perfect  ideal  of  our  own  souls ;  wisdom,  power,  and 
goodness,  which  w^e  have  in  part,  are  whole  in  Him. 
As  the  perfect  ideal.  He  is  for  us  at  the  same  time  the 
object  of  the  love  that  gives  happiness,  which  recog- 
nises what  is  truly  best  in  the  will  of  God,  and  serves 
Him  joyfully  in  obedience  and  devotion.  The  cheerful 
optimism  of  Leibnitz's  view  of  the  world  rests  essenti- 
ally upon  the  conviction  that  the  world  is  the  work  of 
the  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God.  But  although 
this  belief  in  God  ruled  the  century  of  the  Aufhlwrung, 


132  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

nevertheless  it  could  not  permanently  satisfy;  the 
synthesis  of  the  good  and  true  was  reached  too  easily, 
so  that  neither  of  the  two  sides  obtained  its  full 
right — i.e.,  neither  the  unconditionedness  of  the  moral 
ideal,  nor  the  infinitude  of  the  metaphysical  ground  of 
the  world.  And  hence  we  see  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  tendencies  separating  again  on 
both  sides.  Lessing,  Herder  and  Goethe,  Schelling  and 
Schleiermacher  went  back  to  Spinozism,  but  sought  to 
connect  it  with  the  Leibnitzian  individualism,  and  to 
animate  it  in  the  sense  of  a  teleological  development 
of  the  world.  Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  declared  the 
metaphysical  idea  of  God  to  be  incognisable,  and  held 
exclusively  to  the  postulate  of  the  moral  Lawgiver, 
Judge,  and  Euler  of  the  world,  to  believe  in  whom 
reason  felt  itself  compelled,  because  only  under  this 
assumption  could  it  be  tranquillised  regarding  the 
realisability  of  the  highest  good.  Fichte  transformed 
the  Kantian  postulate  of  a  moral  Orderer  of  the  world 
into  the  faith  in  the  moral  world -order,  which  does 
not  need  to  be  grounded  upon  a  personal  God,  seeing 
that  it  is  itself  the  ultimate  and  the  unconditionally  cer- 
tain. Hegel  demanded  that  Spinoza's  substance  should 
be  conceived  as  subject,  as  the  living  world-spirit  which 
moves  by  the  Dialectic  of  the  absolute  thinking  tlirough 
all  the  forms  and  stages  of  being,  which  externalises 
itself  in  Nature,  which  comes  to  itself  in  Man,  and 
which  realises  itself  in  the  historical  development  of 


THE  BELIEF  IN   GOD.  133 

the  human  spirit  as  a  kingdom  of  truth  and  freedom. 
This  was  a  renovation  of  the  Leibnitzian  optimism,  only 
with  the  distinction  that  with  Leibnitz  it  is  the  wisdom 
of  a  personal  Creator  that  foreordains  ("pre-estab- 
lishes ")  the  harmony  of  the  world,  whereas  with  Hegel 
it  is  the  universal  thinking  ("  the  Idea  ")  identical  with 
being,  which  unfolds  itself  by  logical  necessity  into  the 
organism  of  the  world,  and  which  therefore  is  nothing 
else  through  and  through  but  the  manifestation  of  the 
Idea,  the  self-actualisation  of  the  divine  reason.  In 
this  "  Panlogism,"  as  the  Hegelian  philosophy  has  not 
been  inaptly  called,  it  however  appeared  that  the  actual 
existence  of  realitv  did  not  attain  to  its  full  rioht  in 
two  respects.  If  everything  actual  is  rational,  as  Hegel 
said,  where  then  remains  the  evil  and  badness  of  the 
world  ?  Does  not  its  existence  appear  rather  to  point 
to  an  irrational  ground  of  the  world  ?  So  asked 
Schopenhauer;  and  he  therefore  put  in  the  place  of 
the  absolute  reason  the  reasonless  "Will."  or  blind 
impulse  of  life  as  the  ground  of  the  world,  which  just 
on  that  account  is  so  irrational,  so  full  of  evil  and 
suffering,  —  as  Schopenhauer  proceeded  to  show  in 
detail,  attaching  himself  to  the  Indian  pessimism,  and 
with  many  a  dash  of  cynical  irony.  The  defect  of  the 
Hegelian  Panlogism  was  found  in  another  respect  in 
this,  that  there  is  no  place  for  individual  existence,  for 
the  right  of  the  individual  or  of  personality,  in  a  world 
which  presents  only  a  system  of  categories,  determina- 


134  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

tions  of  thought,  or  conceptions,  and  in  which  therefore 
only  the  universal  is  real.  Hence  the  Leibnitzian  in- 
dividualism was  then  revived  by  philosophers  like 
Herbart  and  Lotze ;  they  emphasised  the  worth  of 
personality,  and  thought  of  God  as  the  ideal  or  absolute 
personality,  which,  however,  according  to  Lotze,  is  not 
to  be  considered  as  standing  dualistically  in  opposition 
to  the  world,  but  as  including  the  world  in  Himself  in 
a  way  analogous  to  that  in  which  our  spirit  includes 
in  itself  the  totality  of  its  representations.  Finally, 
the  powerful  advance  of  the  natural  sciences  in  our 
century  has  had  as  its  consequence  in  Germany  that 
the  Idealism  which  since  Kant,  and  even  since  Leib- 
nitz, had  there  its  home,  has  been  given  up  by  many, 
at  least  for  the  theoretical  view  of  the  world,  and  an 
Atheistic  Eealism  has  been  put  into  its  place — either 
as  Materialism,  Atomism,  Hylozoism,  or  as  Scepticism, 
Phenomenalism,  Positivism.  But  at  the  same  time 
many  upholders  of  theoretical  Materialism  or  Natural- 
ism have  nevertheless  maintained  the  right  of  Idealism 
in  the  sphere  of  the  practical  view  of  life.  Feuerbach, 
David  Strauss,  Albert  Lange,  have  been  the  leaders  of 
a  widespread  school  which  holds  the  Idea  of  God  to  be 
indeed  a  fiction  and  illusion,  but  whose  adherents  yet 
hold  fast  to  the  moral  ideal  of  the  good  as  the  final 
end  of  human  life  and  of  history.  Here  the  question 
necessarily  arises,  how  the  good  can  be  the  purpose  or 
end  of  the  world  if  it  is  not  also  in  some  sense  the 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  135 

basis  of  the  world  ?  And  hence  we  stand  once  more 
before  the  old  and  eternal  problem  of  the  belief  in  God, 
which  has  just  for  its  object  the  synthesis  of  the  true 
and  the  good,  or  of  the  real  principle  of  the  world  and 
the  moral  ideal  of  the  human  heart. 

This  analysis  of  the  Idea  of  God  into  its  two  con- 
stituent elements  has  been  presented  lately  in  a 
peculiarly  instructive  way  in  the  controversy  between 
Herbert  Spencer  and  the  Comtean  positivist  Frederic 
Harrison.  The  former  comes  through  analysis  of  the 
real  world  to  the  acceptance  of  an  absolute  reality,  or 
an  infinite  and  eternal  power,  which  must  be  presup- 
posed as  the  background  and  bearer  of  all  that  is 
relative  and  phenomenal,  but  whose  qualities  and  rela- 
tion to  phenomena  are  for  us  unknowable.  This  un- 
knowable absolute  is,  according  to  Spencer,  just  the 
object  of  religion,  the  great  mystery,  in  the  worship  of 
which  all  religions  are  at  one.  According  to  the  posi- 
tivist, on  the  other  hand,  such  an  absolute  being  is  not 
existent,  at  least  for  us,  and  can  have  no  significance 
whatever  either  for  our  religious  feeling  or  for  our 
scientific  thinking;  it  is  rather  Humanity  that  ought 
to  be  the  object  of  the  religious  feeling, — to  it  we 
should  feel  ourselves  bound  through  grateful  piety, 
and  we  should  bind  ourselves  to  its  service  in  devoted 
benevolence.  On  the  one  side,  therefore,  we  have  a 
supreme  moral  ideal  without  a  metaphysical  ground ; 
on    the    other,    an    ultimate    metaphysical    principle 


136  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

without  a  final  moral  purpose ;  and  on  either  side  we 
have  the  one  half  of  what  as  a  whole  forms  the  content 
of  the  belief  in  God.  Shall  this  antithesis  be  the  last 
word  ?  Or  will  it  not  rather  be  the  preparation  for  a 
deeper  synthesis,  a  purer  apprehension  of  that  belief 
which  is  inalienable,  because  indispensable  to  humanity 
— the  belief  in  the  God  of  whom,  through  whom,  and 
to  whom  are  all  things,  to  whom  be  glory  for  ever, 
Amen. 


LECTURE   V. 

THE   KEVELATIOiSr   OF   GOD   IN   THE   NATURAL    ORDER 
OF   THE   WORLD. 

It  may  be  accepted  as  a  recognised  position  that,  since 
the  criticism  of  Hume  and  Kant,  the  so-called  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  God  can  no  longer  be  maintained  in 
their  common  scholastic  form.  No  one  holds  it  still  to 
be  possible  to  prove  the  existence  of  God  from  an  abstract 
conception  of  God,  by  means  of  a  process  of  inference, 
or  from  an  abstract  conception  of  the  world  to  infer 
its  cause  in  a  God  separated  from  it.  But,  from  the 
fact  that  the  old  scholastic  demonstrations  no  longer 
hold  good,  it  would,  however,  be  very  precipitate  to 
conclude  that  the  question  regarding  the  truth  of  the 
belief  in  God  cannot  be  an  object  of  our  reflection 
at  all.  However  often  this  question  may  be  put  aside, 
it  will,  nevertheless,  always  press  itself  again  upon  the 
human  mind  as  the  greatest  problem  for  its  thought. 
And  especially  in  the  present  day,  when  the  bases  of 


138  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

religion  appear  to  be  wavering  in  so  many  ways,  it  has 
become  a  more  burning  question  than  ever.  But  if  it 
be  said  that  it  is  unnecessary  that  we  should  trouble 
ourselves  to  prove  God's  existence,  seeing  that  He 
Himself  does  in  fact  prove  Himself  to  us  by  His 
living  revelation  which  He  permits  us  to  experience, 
then  we  reply  that  this  is  just  the  very  problem  at 
issue — namely,  how  to  demonstrate  the  revelation  of 
God  in  human  experience ;  how  to  bring  it  to  the 
consciousness  of  men,  to  awaken  the  understanding 
and  interest  for  it  in  the  doubters  and  the  indifferent, 
and  then  to  obtain  from  the  manifold  revelations  in 
the  different  spheres  of  life  the  corresponding  expres- 
sions regarding  the  divine  government  and  being.  This 
was  just  the  sum  and  substance  of  what  was  always 
meant  and  aimed  at  in  the  "  Demonstrations  of  God  " 
in  the  earlier  examples  of  them.  They  were  designed 
to  point  out  the  way  by  which  mankind  came  to  the 
consciousness  of  God  by  the  reflecting  understanding ; 
and  to  show,  from  the  analysis  of  human  experience, 
the  justification,  the  good  ground,  and  meaning  of  the 
belief  in  God.  In  order  to  avoid  misunderstandings 
which  cling  to  the  term  "  Proofs  "  or  "  Demonstrations," 
we  therefore  rather  say  that  our  task  is  to  describe  the 
revelation  of  God  in  the  Natural,  Moral,  and  Eeligious 
Order  of  the  World.  And  to-day  we  shall  be  occu- 
pied in  the  first  place  with  the  Natural  World-Order, 
which  is  related  to  tlie  moral  and  religious  Order  of 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       139 

the  World,  as  the  universal  is  to  the  particular,  and  to 
the  most  particular ;  or  as  the  base  of  the  pyramid  is 
to  its  middle  and  apex.  On  each  of  these  stages  of 
the  Order  of  the  World  we  have  to  distinguish  a  sub- 
jective and  an  objective  side,  a  world  of  consciousness 
and  of  existence,  which  correspond  to  each  other  in 
such  a  manner  that  neither  side  can  be  understood 
without  reference  to  the  other.  It  is  just  in  this  re- 
ciprocal relatedness  and  orderedness  of  the  two  to  each 
other  that  the  one  single  ordering  principle  of  the 
whole  reveals  itself ;  and  this  principle  is  God.  It  is 
of  importance  to  recognise  this  double-sidedness  of  the 
Order  of  the  World,  because  thereby  the  attempt, 
which  has  been  often  recently  made,  to  put  the  Order 
of  the  World  itself  in  the  place  of  God,  is  excluded 
from  the  outset.  For  a  conception,  which  when  more 
exactly  examined  resolves  itself  into  a  duality  of  cor- 
relative conceptions,  cannot  possibly  be  the  highest 
concluding  Idea ;  but  it  certainly  contains  the  unfold- 
ing and  manifestation  of  the  One  in  the  many,  the 
revelation  of  God  in  the  world  of  internal  and  external 
experience. 

When  the  "  Natural  Order  of  the  World  "  is  spoken 
of,  we  usually  think  only  of  the  order  of  external 
Nature,  as  a  whole  of  things  and  effects,-  which  exist 
independent  of  our  thinking.  But  David  Hume  has 
already  shown  that  the  radical  conceptions  of  substan- 
tiality and  causality,  by  means  of  which  we  think  the 


140  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ordered  world,  are  not  given  to  us  from  without,  but 
are  added  by  our  own  thought  to  the  impressions  of 
the  senses.  Thereafter  Kant  taught  that  the  forms 
of  perceiDtion  and  thought,  by  means  of  which  we 
connect  the  sensations  into  ideas  and  judgments,  orig- 
inally belong  to  our  mind,  and  he  has  accordingly 
called  our  understanding  on  that  account  "  the  Legis- 
lator of  Nature  " — that  is  to  say,  of  the  Nature  repre- 
sented by  us,  and  which  forms  the  content  of  our 
consciousness.  In  fact,  it  cannot  be  disputed  that  the 
world  of  which  we  know  immediately  is  just  the  world 
of  our  consciousness,  which  at  all  events  rests  primarily 
upon  the  functions  and  laws  of  our  mind.  Hence  the 
question  immediately  arises,  Is  there  corresponding  to 
this  our  subjective  world  of  consciousness,  also  an 
objective  world  of  existence  independent  of  our  con- 
sciousness, or  is  there  not  ?  If  this  question  is  affirmed , 
we  then  stand  before  the  cardinal  question  of  the  theory 
of  knowledge,  How  the  agreement  of  our  thought-world 
with  the  real  world,  upon  which  the  truth  of  our  know- 
ledge rests,  is  thinkable  ?  This  question  is  simply  evaded 
by  the  subjective  idealism  which  denies  a  real  world  and 
only  accepts  the  thought- world  of  our  consciousness. 

Although  this  idealistic  way  of  thinking  has  in  our 
day  not  very  many  representatives,  we  will  yet  try  to 
transfer  ourselves  hypothetically,  for  a  moment,  to  its 
standpoint.  Now  so  much  at  all  events  is  clear,  that 
even  the  idealist,  if  he  would  not  fall  into  the  absur- 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       141 

dity  of  "  Solipsism,"  must  at  least  accept  a  plurality  of 
subjects  of  consciousness  which  stand  related  to  one 
another  in  the  exchange  of  thoughts,  through  the 
medium  of  language.  But  then,  it  is  asked,  how  do 
these  different  minds  come  to  the  harmonious  repre- 
sentation of  a  nature  common  to  them,  and  that  is  the 
medium  of  their  reciprocal  action  ?  To  this  Fichte  has 
answered,  that  the  agreement  of  finite  minds  in  the 
notion  of  an  external  world  is  explained  by  the  fact 
that  they  are  only  the  limited  forms  of  the  manifesta- 
tion of  a  universal  reason.  In  a  similar  sense  Berkeley 
had  already  said  that  the  idea  of  external  things  is  pro- 
duced in  human  minds  by  God.  But  if  any  one  per- 
haps preferred  to  say  that  the  similarity  in  the  human 
representations  of  an  external  nature  is  explained  by 
the  similar  psychological  laws  of  our  process  of  repre- 
sentation, the  question  would  thereby  only  be  driven 
further  back.  For  whence,  we  must  then  necessarily 
ask,  this  similarity  of  the  psychological  processes  and 
states,  if  the  individual  minds  were  originally  separate 
independent  monads,  and  were  not  bound  to  each  other 
by  a  universal  consciousness  that  embraced  all  the 
individuals  ?  If,  in  accordance  with  a  logical  indivi- 
dualism, we  hold  every  individual  Ego  to  be  a  monad 
which  shuts  itself  up  in  its  own  ideal  world,  and  that 
its  representations  flow  on  independently  of  any  uni- 
versal spiritual  principle,  then  the  agreement  in  the 
representations  of  the  individual  Egos  regarding  the 


142  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

common  world  surrounding  them  would  be  an  incon- 
ceivable mystery.  And,  moreover,  we  can  no  longer 
speak  of  error  and  truth  in  the  rei3resentations  of  each 
individual,  because  there  would  be  no  universal  cri- 
terion by  which  to  judge  them ;  the  course  of  the  re- 
presentations of  every  individual  consciousness  would 
then  be  just  as  true  as  that  of  every  other,  and  the 
movement  of  the  waking  consciousness  would  be  no 
more  true  than  that  of  one  who  dreamed.  In  short, 
there  would  be  in  this  intellectual  anarchy,  as  such,  no 
longer  any  truth  or  any  order,  or  a  Cosmos,  but  only  a 
Chaos  of  many  associations  of  ideas,  running  on  side  by 
side.  Therefore,  even  in  the  hypothetically  assumed 
case,  that  there  is  only  an  ideal  nature  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  thinking  minds,  we  could  not  escape  from  the 
question  how  the  different  subjects  come  to  a  corre- 
sponding image  of  the  world,  and  how  they  are  able 
to  distinguish  what  is  merely  subjectively  represented, 
from  the  common  or  objective  mode  of  representation — 
that  is  to  say,  how  they  can  distinguish  error  from  truth. 
This  question,  however,  can  hardly  be  solved  otherwise 
than  by  the  assumption  of  a  universal  consciousness, 
which  must  be  the  common  ground,  as  well  as  the  rul- 
ins  law,  of  all  individual  consciousnesses  or  minds. 

But  we  are  not  able  seriously  to  appropriate  or  hold 
the  hypothesis  of  subjective  idealism.  How  high  soever 
we  may  think  of  our  spiritual  life  as  elevated  above  ex- 
ternal Nature,  we  cannot,  however,  establish  such  an 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       143 

absolute  gulf  between  the  two  that  reality  should  only 
pertain  to  the  former  and  not  to  the  latter.    We  cannot 
shut  out  the  consideration  that  a  life  nearly  related  to 
human  consciousness  is  also  found  in  the  sub-human 
world  among  the  lower  animals ;  and  how  then  can  we 
deny  them  real  existence?     And,  besides,  seeing  that 
there  are  only  graduated  distinctions  existing  between 
the  animal  and  the  vegetable  manifestations,  and  again 
between  the  latter  and  the  minerals,  no  reason  can  be 
seen  why  a  real  existence  by  itself  can  be  denied  to  any 
one  part  of  the  phenomena  which  we  call  "Nature." 
The  view  which  is  self-evident  to  the  sound  human 
understanding,  that  with  all  our  consciousness  of  the 
world  there  corresponds  a  real  world  existing  by  itself 
independent  of  our  thinking,  is  certainly  not  merely  the 
simplest  but  also  the  most  correct  hypothesis  for  the 
exj)lanation  of  the  facts  of  our  consciousness.    Wherein 
"  naive  Eealism  " — the  realism  of  common-sense — errs, 
and  requires  and   needs  justification  by  philosophical 
reflection,  is  only  in  the  opinion  that  the  world  of  reality 
as  existing  in  itself  entirely  corresponds  to  the  world  re- 
presented by  us,  and  that  the  latter  is  only  a  passively 
received  copy  of  the  former.     This  error  has  been  re- 
futed by  the  critical  analysis  of  the  process  of  cognition 
showing  that  we  build  up  our  world  of  consciousness 
self-actively  out  of  the  raw  material  of  sensations,  by 
means  of  the  forms  of  perception  and  thinking  that  are 
innate  in  us.     The  truth  which  we  are  accustomed  to 


?v 


144  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ascribe  to  this  world  of  consciousness  cannot  indeed 
consist  in  its  being  the  exact  copy  of  a  world  of  reality 
that  has  just  the  same  colours  and  sounds  belonging  to 
it;  but  the  truth  lies  properly  in  this,  that  the  sub- 
jectively conditioned  images  of  our  consciousness  con- 
tain the  representative  signs,  by  which  we  know  the 
relations  of  real  existences  to  each  other  and  to  us.  As 
the  letters  of  a  writing  are  the  written  signs  by  means 
of  which  we  are  able  to  reproduce  the  thoughts  of  the 
author,  so  the  representations  and  associations  of  repre- 
sentation in  our  consciousness  are  the  sign-language  by 
means  of  which  we  reproduce  the  relations  of  things  to 
one  another  and  to  ourselves,  or  make  the  real  world  an 
object  of  our  knowledge.  And  thus  arises  the  question 
which  has  been  already  indicated,  namely,  How  is  it 
possible  that  our  connection  of  sensations  into  repre- 
sentations and  of  representations  into  judgments,  which 
ive  ourselves  carry  on  according  to  oicr  subjective  forms 
of  perception  and  thinking,  is  the  correct  sign  and  cor- 
relative of  real  things  and  of  their  relations,  as  they  are 
in  themselves  independent  of  our  representing  of  them  ? 
This  correspondence  between  the  world  thought  by  us, 
and  the  real  world  as  it  exists  in  itself,  upon  which  all 
the  truth  of  our  knowing  rests,  appears  to  me  only  ex- 
plicable on  the  assumption  that  the  Order  of  the  Eeal 
World  is  subject  to  analogous  laws  of  being  and  work- 
ins,  as  the  Order  of  our  Ideal  World  is  to  laws  of 
perceiving  and  thinking. 


*^' 


REVELATION  IN   THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       145 

That  it  actually  is  so,  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  postu- 
late of  our  theoretical  reason,  without  which  we  should 
be  compelled  entirely  to  despair  of  all  truth  in  our 
knowing.     But  we  also  have  a  proof  of  the  correctness 
of  this  postulate  in  daily  experience  as  often  as  we  see 
results,  which  were  expected  on  the  grounds  of  the  laws 
of   Nature  as  thought  by  us,  correctly  appear.     For 
example,  the  astronomer  may  calculate  a  future  ce- 
lestial phenomenon,  on  the  basis  of  the  laws  of  the 
motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  which  he  has  nowhere 
deciphered  in  the  heavens,  but  which  his  own  under- 
standing has  thought  out  in  order  by  means  of  them  to 
explain  and  arrange  the  Chaos  of  the  manifold  terres- 
trial phenomena.     If,  then,  the  phenomenon  calculated 
by  him  presents  itself  punctually  at  the  minute  to  his 
perception,  this  is  manifestly  a  proof  of  the  correctness 
of  the  laws  thouglit  out  by  the  astronomer — i.e.,  a  proof 
of  their  agreement  with  the  laws  according  to  which  the 
heavenly  bodies  actually  move.   Hence  the  laws  accord- 
ing to  which  the  human  understanding  thinks  and  cal- 
culates, arranges  the  given  phenomena  and  anticipates 
future  ones,  correspond  to  the  laws  according  to  which 
things  hang   together  and  work  upon   each   other   in 
the  real  world.     How  is  this  correspondence  between 
the  laws  of  our  thinking,  which  are  not  given  to  us 
from  without,  and  the  laws  of  being,   which  are  not 
made  by  us,  explained?     So  far  as  I  see,  only  from 
this,  that  the  two  have  their   common  ground   in  a 
VOL.  I.  K 


146  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Divine  thinking,  in  a  creative  Eeason  which  manifests 
its  thoughts  partly  in  the  Order  of  the  real  world  and 
partly  in  the  thinking  of  our  understanding  as  it  copies 
that  Order.  The  agreement  of  our  thinking  with  the 
being  of  the  world  rests  on  the  fact  that  it  is  the  repro- 
duction of  the  creative  thoughts  of  the  Infinite  mind,  a 
reproduction  which  is  always  imperfect  according  to 
the  measure  of  the  finite  mind.  The  truth  of  our  cog- 
nition is  a  participating  in  the  truth  wdiich  God  essen- 
tially is. 

This  is  the  proper  sense  and  the  abiding  truth  con- 
tained in  the  so-called  "  Ontological  Argument,"  the 
tenor  of  which  refers  to  the  relation  of  thinking  and 
being  so  understood.  This  argument  is  as  old  as  reli- 
gious reflection.  It  is  already  contained  in  the  words 
of  the  Psalmist,  "  In  Thy  light  we  see  light."  It  forms 
the  hinge  of  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  according  to  which 
the  highest  Idea,  or  God,  is  the  ground  both  of  knowing 
and  of  being,  and  all  true  cognition  is  a  participation  in 
the  world  of  the  Ideas  of  the  Divine  reason.  In  like 
manner,  according  to  Augustine,  God  is  the  eternal 
truth,  the  ground  and  goal  of  all  the  true  thinking  of 
man.  According  to  Thomas  Aquinas,  we  see  and  judge 
all  things  in  the  light  of  God,  in  so  far  as  the  natural 
light  of  our  reason  is  a  participating  in  the  Divine 
light.  In  the  hands  of  Anselm  this  thought,  which  is 
distinctly  found  exhibited  in  his  '  Proslogium,'  received 
the  unfortunate  scholastic  turn,  that  from  the  concep- 


REVELATION  IN   THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       147 

tion  of  God  as  the  most  perfect  Being,  an  inference 
is  drawn  of  His  existence  as  one  of  the  attributes 
contained  in  the  conception.  This  inference,  which  is 
also  found  repeated  by  Descartes  and  Wolff,  has  been 
rightly  disposed  of  by  Kant  as  a  piece  of  school  wit ; 
but  his  criticism  shot  beyond  the  mark  and  overlooked 
the  deeper  correct  thought,  which  is  concealed  under 
the  deceptive  scholastic  form  of  the  ontological  argu- 
ment. Kant,  in  setting  up  such  an  opposition  between 
Thinking  and  Being  as  that  no  way  led  from  the  former 
to  the  latter  at  all,  makes  not  merely  the  Being  of  God, 
but  likewise  that  of  the  world,  unknowable.  Know- 
ledge being  separated  from  Being,  is  limited  to  mere 
subjective  phenomena,  and  is  consequently  at  bottom 
robbed  of  all  truth.  The  philosophy  of  Hegel  reacted 
against  this  exaggerated  dualism,  but  it  fell  again,  in 
its  turn,  into  just  as  exaggerated  a  monism  in  simply 
identifying  Thinking  and  Being.  Thereby  the  problem 
of  the  theory  of  Knowledge  was  not  so  much  solved  as 
rather  cut  in  pieces  by  the  sword,  and  the  distinction 
between  the  real  creative  thinking  of  God  and  our 
ideally  reproductive  thinking  was  so  confounded,  that 
Strauss  and  Feuerbach  were  able  to  draw  from  it  the 
absurd  consequence  of  explaining  the  human  thinking 
itself  as  the  absolute  self-deification  of  speculative  philo- 
sophy, a  view  which  soon  enough  was  bitterly  revenged 
by  its  passing  into  materialism.  The  point  of  the  "  On- 
tological "  argument  lies  rather  just  in  this,  that  our 


148  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Thinking  and  Being  are  indeed  different,  yet  are  con- 
stituted for  each  other  by  the  conformity  of  the  laws 
on  both  sides,  and  that  in  this  agreement — or  pre-estab- 
lished harmony,  according  to  Leibnitz — of  the  two  sides, 
the  unity  of  the  ordering  principle,  i.e.  of  the  effec- 
tuating Thinking  or  the  Omnipotent  Reason  of  God, 
reveals  itself. 

In  our  consideration  of  the  Natural  Order  of  the 
World  we  started  from  its  ideal  side,  or  the  side  of 
consciousness.  The  result  found  in  this  relation  will 
be  completed  and  confirmed  if  we  now  also  consider  it 
from  the  real  side.  In  doing  so  we  come  to  the  subject 
of  the  "  Cosmological  "  and  "  Teleological  "  arguments. 
Kant's  criticism  has  shown  on  philosophical  grounds 
that  these  two  arguments  are  untenable  in  their  tradi- 
tional scholastic  form,  and  these  grounds  are  further 
strengthened  by  the  Natural  Science  of  the  present  day. 
The  "  Cosmological "  argument  reasoned  from  the  con- 
tingency of  the  world  to  its  having  been  produced  by  a 
necessary  extra-mundane  cause ;  and  the  well-founded 
objection  has  been  raised  against  it  by  Hume  and  Kant 
that  the  argument  starts  from  an  arbitrary  view,  for, 
from  the  fact  that  every  individual  thing  in  the  world 
is  a  contingent  thing — i.e.,  is  conditioned  by  something 
else — it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  the  same  relation 
holds  good  of  the  world  as  a  whole, — that  it  is  conting- 
ent, and  must  have  its  ground  in  an  extra-mundane 
cause.    It  is  not  the  contingency,  but  the  universal  and 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       149 

constant  conformity  of  nature  to  law,  that  is  the  fun- 
damental presupposition  of  the  science  of  the  present 
day  —  a  presupposition  which  certainly  cannot  be 
proved,  but  which  must  be  accepted  if  there  is  to  be  an 
inductive  investigation  of  Nature,  and  which  is  always 
confirmed  anew  by  every  step  in  the  advance  of  our 
knowledge  of  Nature,  so  that  its  probability  approaches 
certainty.  But  because  we  in  the  present  day  know 
Nature  as  a  connected  order  of  causes  and  effects  bet- 
ter than  former  ages  knew  it,  shall  the  words  of  the 
apostle  on  that  account  be  less  valid  for  us,  that  "  the 
invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation  of  the  world 
are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that 
are  made,  even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead "  ? 
(Eom.  i.  20.) 

If  we  hold  Nature  to  be  a  system  of  forces  which 
stand  in  regulated  reciprocal  action  with  each  other, 
the  ultimate  riddle  of  the  universe  is  thereby  so  far 
from  being  solved  that  the  question  rather  first  arises, 
How,  then,  is  a  causal  working  of  one  being  upon  another 
at  all  to  be  explained  ?  The  popular  statement,  that 
an  influence  passes  from  the  one  to  the  other,  is  an 
image  which  can  explain  nothing ;  for  the  state  which 
has  appeared  through  a  change  in  the  first  thing  can- 
not leave  this  thing  and  pass  over  to  a  second  or  third 
thing,  and  so  on,  but  it  has  only  as  a  consequence  that 
in  the  second  thing,  the  third  thing,  and  so  on,  corres- 
ponding states  also  appear.     What  we  call  the  causal 


150  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

working  of  things  upon  each  other  consists  in  this, 
that  upon  an  alteration  in  the  one  thing  corresponding 
alterations  necessarily  follow  in  the  other  things.  This, 
however,  as  Lotze  has  luminously  shown,  would  be 
inconceivable  under  the  supposition  that  the  individual 
things  are  independent  existences  and  were  indifferent 
towards  each  other;  it  becomes  conceivable,  however, 
on  the  view  that  they  are  embraced  as  parts  or  members 
in  an  all-comprehending  living  unity.  For  then  the 
alteration  in  a  part  is  at  the  same  time  an  alteration 
in  the  state  of  the  whole,  and  accordingly  calls  forth 
the  alteration  in  another  part  as  its  completing  com- 
pensation. If,  therefore,  the  mystery  of  transeunt 
causality  is  solved  by  this,  that  we  refer  it  to  the 
immanent  causality  within  an  organic  whole,  we  come 
to  see  in  the  regulated  reciprocity  of  the  individual 
forces,  or  in  "  Nature,"  the  manifestation  of  a  single 
primary  force  or  "  Omnipotence  "  which  unfolds  itself 
in  an  infinite  multiplicity  of  mutually  related  effects. 

But  how  shall  we  now  have  to  think  more  precisely 
of  this  primary  force  ?  Are  we  to  conceive  of  it  as  a 
material  and  blindly  working  force,  or  as  a  spiritual 
and  intelligent  power  ?  The  deciding  grounds  for 
answering  this  question  will  indeed  only  be  shown 
in  consideration  of  the  moral  and  religious  World 
Order  in  the  next  lecture;  yet,  even  upon  the  stand- 
point of  our  present  more  general  consideration,  certain 
grounds  may  be  recognised  which  speak  for  the  spiritual 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       151 

character  of  the  principle  of  the  Order  of  Nature.  Let 
us  first  of  all  recall  to  mind  whence  our  conception  of 
an  efficient  force  is  derived.  It  cannot  be  given  to  us 
from  without,  for  what  we  immediately  perceive  are 
only  changing  phenomena  ;  if  we  see  in  them  effects 
of  forces,  this  is  already  an  interpretation  which  we 
derive  from  the  analogy  of  the  effects  produced  by 
ourselves.  The  only  force  or  power  which  we  know 
immediately  and  from  within,  is  the  power  of  our  own 
will ;  from  its  working,  its  being  checked,  and  its 
counter-working,  arises  originally  our  conception  of 
efficient  power,  and  therefore  of  causality  generally. 
By  this  we  are  assuredly  justified  in  thinking  of  the 
universal  cause  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  parti- 
cular things,  according  to  tlie  analogy  of  the  power 
of  the  will  which  is  alone  immediately  known  to  us, 
and  consequently  to  think  it  as  a  spiritual  principle. 
Likewise  the  constant  regularity  with  which  things  so 
work  upon  each  other  that  there  exists  an  Order,  a 
constant  unity,  in  the  multiplicity  of  the  processes 
changing  in  time,  could  hardly  otherwise  be  explained 
than  according  to  psychological  analogy — namely,  by 
the  supposition  that  the  mode  of  the  w^orking  of  the 
manifold  forces  is  determined  by  thoughts,  which  have 
their  unity  in  the  thinking  of  the  Divine  will  that 
governs  the  world.  As  in  us  it  is  the  thinking  reason 
which  comprises  the  multiplicity  of  the  changing 
phenomena   of    consciousness    under    conceptions    and 


152  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

laws,  and  whicli  connects  them  into  an  ordered  image 
of  the  world,  so  we  may  behold  in  the  corresponding 
order  of  the  real  world  the  unfolding  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  creative  reason  of  God.  If  this  analogical 
inference  were  not  justified,  neither  should  we  have 
any  right  to  hold  the  view  that  there  is  a  real  Order 
of  the  World,  corresponding  to  the  Order  of  the  World 
thought  by  us,  and  consequently  we  should  have  no 
right  to  ascribe  objective  truth  to  our  thinking.  That 
we  think  causally — i.e.,  connect  Cause  and  Effect  by 
a  super-temporal  logical  necessity — presupposes  that 
in  the  real  world  Cause  and  Effect  also  hang  together 
through  an  equally  logical  necessity,  which  cannot  be 
grounded  in  the  temporal  phenomena  but  only  in  the 
supra-temporal  logical  principle  which  rules  over  and 
combines  them.  In  short,  the  logical  truth  of  the 
principle  of  the  sufficient  reason  presupposes  that 
the  ground  and  law  of  the  temporal  phenomena  lie 
in  a  Divine  Logos. 

But  our  thinking  is  as  essentially  teleological  as 
causal ;  both  are  grounded  on  the  same  original  experi- 
ence in  ourselves.  For  the  alterations  which  we  evoke 
in  external  states  by  the  exercise  of  our  will  have  been, 
before  they  appeared,  already  present  to  us  in  more 
or  less  clear  consciousness,  as  internally  represented 
objects  or  ends  of  our  activity.  Along  with  the  con- 
ception of  causality  there  arises  to  us,  therefore,  out  of 
the  same  experience  of  our  own  activity,  also  at  the 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       153 

same  time,  that  of  purpose  or  end ;  the  two  are  only 
different  modes  of  contemplating  the  same  process. 
Hence  the  connection  of  the  two  modes  of  contem- 
plating things  is  inherently  so  natural  and  inevitable 
that  we  only  learn  gradually  to  separate  the  two  more 
definitely,  but  we  are  never  able  to  dispense  entirely 
with  either  of  them.  It  was  so  natural  for  religious 
reflection  to  see  a  revelation  of  the  divine  reason  in  the 
positiveness  of  Nature,  that  we  are  not  surprised  when 
we  meet  with  this  mode  of  contemplation  in  the  ear- 
liest antiquity.  Kant  rightly  called  the  Teleological 
Argument  the  oldest,  the  clearest,  and  the  best  adapted 
to  the  common  reason,  and  he  says  that  it  always 
deserves  to  be  mentioned  with  respect.  The  objections 
which  he  raises  to  it  rather  strike  the  popular  an- 
thropomorphic form  of  the  argument  than  its  proper 
kernel.  So  far  as  the  argument  only  proceeds  from  the 
form  of  things  as  purposively  arranged,  it  brings  us, 
Kant  said,  to  a  mere  author  of  this  form,  an  Architect 
of  the  world,  and  not  a  Creator  of  the  world.  And  as 
experience,  nevertheless,  shows  us  no  unlimited  pur- 
posiveness,  but  much  that  is  contrary  to  design  in 
detail,  the  inference  of  a  perfect  designing  intelligence 
is  not  justified, — certainly  a  very  noteworthy  objection 
to  the  popular  apprehension  of  the  argument,  in  which 
the  conclusion  drawn  proceeds  from  the  artificial  con- 
stitution of  the  world  to  an  extra-mundane  Creator  of 
perfect  wisdom  and  unconditioned   power.      But  the 


154  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

main  question  is,  whether  this  whole  way  of  viewing 
the  subject  is  at  all  correct  ?  To  represent  the  world 
as  an  artificial  machine,  and  God  as  the  skilful  maker 
of  it,  might  indeed  appear  natural  to  the  mechanical 
way  of  thinking  prevalent  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries ;  but  to  us  of  the  present  day  this 
representation  has  become  strange  and  impossible  to  be 
thought.  Since  Herder  and  Goethe,  we  have  learned 
to  see  in  Nature  not  a  made  work  of  Art  but  a  living 
organism  whose  life  is  unfolded  and  formed  from  within, 
according  to  its  own  impulse  and  laws.  And  this  way 
of  contemplating  Nature,  which  was  already  anticipated 
in  genial  intuition  by  the  poets  and  thinkers  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  has  received  a  magnificent 
confirmation  in  our  age  through  Darwin's  investigation 
of  nature.  The  theory  of  development,  in  its  funda- 
mental idea  at  least,  is  accepted  generally  nowadays  as 
one  of  the  most  certain  conquests  of  scientific  investi- 
gation. It  is  now  clear  that  by  it  the  earlier  form  of 
the  Teleological  Argument  has  become  untenable ;  for 
if  the  living  beings  have  become  such  as  we  know  them 
of  themselves  through  natural  causes,  the  question  as 
to  an  external  author  through  whom  they  have  been 
made  has  begun  to  give  way.  Yet  the  opinion,  not 
unfrequently  heard,  that  with  the  theory  of  develop- 
ment the  conception  of  purpose  or  end  in  general,  and 
with  it  all  ideal  principles,  have  been  banished  from 
the  thinking  contemplation  of  the  world,  may  never- 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       155 

theless  be  very  precipitate.  The  teleological  way  of 
viewing  things,  as  Kant  has  already  shown  in  the 
'  Critique  of  the  Judgment/  is  for  us  as  irrefragable  a 
psychological  necessity  as  the  causal  connection  of 
phenomena.  The  only  question  at  issue  is  the  correct 
combination  of  the  two,  and  for  this  question  the 
conception  of  "  Development "  is  of  the  greatest 
importance. 

The  modern  Theory  of  Development  appears  to  me 
so  little  to  contradict  the  acceptance  of  an  immanent 
rational  principle  of  the  world,  that,  when  rightly  under- 
stood, it  may  rather  serve  as  a  powerful  support  of  it. 
The  kernel  of  this  theory,  when  collateral  and  dispu- 
table determinations  are  left  out  of  view,  will  be  found 
in  the  following  two  propositions :  (1)  All  the  life  of 
the  earth  is  one  uninterrupted  connected  process  of 
development,  which  has  reached  its  goal  in  man,  and 
from  this  point  the  natural  process  passes  over  into  the 
historical  process  ;  (2)  all  the  forms  of  life  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  are  developed  out  of  simple  funda- 
mental forms,  under  the  co-operation  of  inner  vital 
impulses  and  external  conditions  of  life.  That  in  the 
case  of  some  the  external  conditions  of  life  are  more 
accentuated,  and  in  the  case  of  others  the  internal 
vital  impulses  are  more  accentuated,  may  be  of  impor- 
tant consequence  in  the  application  of  the  theory  to 
investigation  in  detail,  but  it  nevertheless  makes  no 
difference  in  principle.      In  Darwin's  theory  the  inner 


156  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

vital  imxDulse  is  not  wanting,  however  it  may  appear  to 
retreat  behind  the  external  conditions  of  life  ;  for  what 
else  is  the  "  struggle  for  existence  "  but  the  exercise  of 
the  impulse  of  self-preservation?  Yet  the  other  im- 
pulses will  not  have  to  be  excluded  —  namely,  those 
which  aim  at  the  invigoration,  expansion,  and  perfec- 
tion of  life,  according  to  the  tendency  determined  by 
its  inherent  nature.  All  life  effectuates  itself  in  the 
exercise  of  impulses  which  strive  after  those  states  in 
which  the  living  being  finds  satisfaction,  and  which 
therefore  correspond  to  its  nature,  and  promote  its 
preservation  and  perfectionment.  May  it  not,  then,  be 
rightly  said,  that  all  life  is  determined  by  ends  which, 
although  unconscious  to  the  individual  being  itself,  yet 
as  impulse  and  instinct  predetermine  from  the  begin- 
ning the  direction  and  the  course  of  the  development 
of  its  life?  And  was  not,  therefore,  Aristotle  right 
when  he  taught  that  the  end  is  not  only  the  last,  but 
also  the  first,  and  the  impelling  power  of  the  whole 
movement  ?  But  if  it  holds  true  of  the  individual 
being,  that  the  final  end  which  results  from  the  de- 
velopment of  its  life  is  also  already  the  ideal  prius  of 
the  whole  process,  then  we  shall  be  able  to  apply  the 
same  thought  to  the  whole  process  of  the  life  of  our 
earth,  and  to  draw  therefrom  a  conclusion  as  to  the 
principle  of  this  process.  And  we  are  justified  in 
doing  so  by  the  very  fundamental  thought  of  modern 
biology,  according  to  which  all  the  life  of  the  earth 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       157 

forms  one  advancing  development  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest  forms  of  existence.  If  we  survey  the 
whole  of  this  development,  we  see  how  with  the 
growing  differentiation  and  refinement  of  the  sensible 
organisation  there  comes  in  at  the  same  time  a  growing, 
deepening,  and  clearing  of  the  psychical  life,  rising  up 
from  the  dull  sensations  of  the  lowest  living  beings  to 
the  dawning  consciousness  of  the  higher  animals,  and 
at  last  to  the  clear  human  consciousness,  which  objecti- 
fies its  representations  in  language,  and  thereby  attains 
and  secures  the  independence  of  the  spiritual  life. 
Shall  we  not,  then,  be  entitled  to  draw  the  conclusion, 
that  this  very  spiritual  life  of  man  has  been  the  end  to 
which  the  whole  process  of  life  on  our  earth  strove 
from  the  beginning  and  constantly  through  all  trans- 
formations of  the  organisation — that  it  was  the  final  end 
for  which  all  previous  natural  existence  has  been  only 
the  preparatory  stage,  the  subservient  means,  the  causal 
mechanism  ?  But  how,  we  ask,  is  it  to  be  made  in- 
telligible that  our  earth,  which  was  once  on  a  time  a 
glowing  ball,  produced  life  which  had  spirit  as  its  end, 
if  it  were  not  that  this  spirit  of  the  life  of  the  earth, 
in  its  process  of  becoming,  had  its  ultimate  ground  in 
the  eternal  spirit  of  the  universal  life  ? — if  it  had  not 
been  the  purposive  thought  of  the  creative  reason  of 
God,  which  realised  itself  in  the  teleological  process  of 
the  movement  of  all  life  in  the  terrestrial  sphere  of  the 
world,  and  indeed  in  every  other  sphere  as  well  ?     As 


158  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

little  as  biological  science  can  be  prevented  from 
searching  into  the  causal  conditions  and  connections  of 
the  terrestrial  development  of  life  in  detail,  just  as 
little  are  we  hindered,  on  the  other  hand,  from  seein<^ 
in  the  whole  of  this  causal  mechanism  the  means  by 
which  the  timeless  universal  consciousness  of  the  in- 
finite Spirit  reproduces  itself  in  that  advancing  move- 
ment in  time  in  which  the  terrestrial  life  becomes 
conscious. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  view  is  just  a  hypothesis,  in 
contrast  to  which  other  hypotheses  for  the  explana- 
tion of  nature  stand  with  equal  right,  while  none  of 
them  all  can  yet  be  positively  verified.  Certainly  all 
theories  regarding  the  ultimate  basis  of  life  and  of 
its  development  are  hypothetical,  and  remain  hypo- 
thetical to  the  exact  science  which  is  directed  to  in- 
dividual phenomena.  Yet  I  think  that  the  hypothesis 
which  has  just  been  presented  has  the  advantage  that 
it  admits  the  right  which  is  claimed  for  the  ideal  side 
of  the  order  of  nature,  the  facts  of  our  consciousness ; 
whereas  in  the  materialistic  hypotheses,  which  see  in 
nature  merely  the  causal  mechanism  of  forces,  or 
matter  without  spirit  and  end,  the  fact  of  the  knowing 
spirit  itself  always  remains  an  uncomprehended  and 
incomprehensible  riddle.  Now,  as  was  said  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  lecture,  if  there  belong  to  the  whole  of 
the  order  of  nature  the  two  sides — namely,  the  knowing 
spirit  and  the  nature  that  is  to  be  known — then  the 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL    ORDER.       159 

higher  claim  to  truth  may  well  be  admitted  to  belong 
to  tJiat  hypothesis  which  is  able  to  explain,  not  merely 
one  of  the  two  sides  while  leaving  out  the  other,  but 
both  sides  equally,  and  which  can  conceive  their  re- 
ciprocal correspondence  from  the  unity  of  their  com- 
mon ground. 

That  the  scientific  consideration  of  nature,  which 
is  directed  to  the  causal  conformity  of  phenomena 
to  law,  is  not  the  only  justifiable  way  of  regarding  it, 
may  be  proved  even  from  the  daily  experience  of 
common  life.  For  the  impression  of  the  beautiful 
which  nature  makes  upon  the  human  mind  is  quite 
independent  of  the  intellectual  knowledge  which  re- 
lates to  causal  connection ;  and  it  presses  itself  upon 
the  learned  investigator  of  nature,  who  perhaps  denies 
all  Teleology  in  principle  and  all  that  is  Ideal  in  nature, 
with  the  same  necessity  as  on  the  simple  sense  of  the 
uneducated  man  who  has  never  formed  any  thoughts 
regarding  the  grounds  of  the  origin  of  phenomena, 
and  yet  involuntarily  feels  and  admires  their  sub- 
limity and  beauty,  Now  it  is  of  course  said  that 
the  impression  of  the  beautiful  is  a  purely  subjective 
feeling,  from  which  no  conclusions  whatever  can  be 
drawn  regardinfr  the  constitution  of  nature.  This  is, 
indeed,  so  far  correct,  that  the  aesthetic  sensation  is 
subjectively  conditioned  by  the  disposition,  not  merely 
of  the  senses,  but  still  more  of  the  soul  of  the  indi- 
vidual ;    and   that   the   aesthetic    capacity,   like    every 


160  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

other,   must   also   be    developed   and   cultivated   to  a 
certain  degree  in   order  that  the  individual  may  re- 
ceive   the    impression    of   the   beautiful    from   nature. 
And  yet  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  sen- 
sation  of   the   beautiful   is  something  merely  subjec- 
tive,   an    arbitrary    product    of    our    fantasy,    which 
we  groundlessly  assign  to  external   nature  when  we 
feel    our    aesthetic   sense    excited    by   nature.      There 
must  just   as  certainly  be  an    objective   qualification 
of  real   nature   corresponding  to   this   our   subjective 
sensation,  as  there  are  real  objects  and  their  relations 
in  the  world  corresponding  to  our  representations  and 
the  connections  of  our  representations.     What,  then, 
may  that  qualification  of  nature  be  which  we  perceive 
by  means   of   the   aesthetic   sensation,  and  which  we 
have  accordingly  to  conceive  as  the  objective  corre- 
late  of  the    subjective   impression   of   the   beautiful? 
Kant  already   pointed  out,  and  the  more  recent  aes- 
thetics have  put   it  into  still  clearer  light,  that  the 
modification   of  nature  which  is  perceived   by  us  as 
beauty  is  its  immanent  purposiveness,  the  harmonious 
relation  of  the  parts  to  the  whole,  the  rational  neces- 
sity which  governs  the  free  play  of  forces,  and  which 
establishes  unity  in  a  multiplicity.      And  hence  the 
teleological  ideal   background  of   reality,  the  shining 
of   the   Idea   through   phenomena,   is   that  which  we 
feel  as  the  beauty  of  nature ;  and  assuredly  we  could 
not   feel   it   if   the   receptivity   for   it   were   not   also 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       161 

given  in  the  rational  constitution  of  our  soul.  In 
this  there  is  also  established  that  correspondence  of 
the  inner  and  outer,  of  subjective  and  objective  ra- 
tionality, which  is  the  ground  of  all  our  knowing  of 
the  world.  We  are  therefore  led  from  this  side  of  the 
contemplation  of  nature  again  to  the  same  conclusion, 
that  the  beauty  of  nature  stands  to  us  as  a  revelation 
of  the  creative  spirit,  which  has  also  lent  us  the 
capacity  to  recognise  the  glory  of  His  works,  and  to 
imitate  it  in  creating  artistic  forms. 

We  have  considered  the  order  of  nature  from  its 
two  sides,  the  Ideal  and  Eeal,  and  have  come  on  both 
sides  to  the  same  harmonious  result.  We  have  recog- 
nised in  it  the  revelation  of  one  principle,  which  is 
universal  consciousness  as  well  as  omnipotence,  and 
which  is  therefore  the  revelation  of  a  thinking  and 
willing  spirit,  or  God.  But  here  there  arises  a  diffi- 
culty which  is  too  important  for  us  to  leave  unnoticed. 
We  know  thinking  and  willing  only  in  the  form  of  a 
human  consciousness,  to  which  the  limits  of  finiteness 
essentially  belong.  Consciousness  is  a  distinguishing 
of  the  knowing  subject  from  the  known  object  to 
which  it  stands  opposed,  and  by  which  it  is  limited. 
It  does  not  itself  create  its  material,  but  finds  it 
presented  and  given  to  it.  It  relates  itself  passively 
to  the  impressions  of  things,  and  is  therefore  depen- 
dent on  a  presented  world.  In  like  manner,  the  will 
is  a  form  of  desire  which  presupposes  a  want  in  the 

VOL.  I.  L 


162  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

wilier,  and  it  directs  itself  to  objects  in  which  it 
finds  the  material  and  means  of  its  activity,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  restraint  of  that  activity,  or  a  re- 
sistance which  it  has  to  overcome.  All  this  appears 
to  presuppose  a  limited  individual  being  which  is 
conditioned  and  limited  by  another.  How  then,  it 
may  be  asked,  can  such  determination  be  transferred 
or  assigned  to  God  without  making  Him  finite,  or 
without  making  Him  a  man  enlarged  to  gigantic  pro- 
portions, which  is  making  Him  a  mythical  phantom  ? 
Certainly  this  is  a  question  which  requires  earnest 
consideration,  which  at  all  events  warns  us  to  great 
caution  in  the  transference  of  human  qualities  to  the 
Divine  Being.  Shall  we,  then,  under  the  weight  of 
this  difficulty,  simply  desist  from  speaking  of  a  Think- 
ing and  Willing  of  God  ?  Shall  we  deny  Him  conscious 
spiritual  life,  and  designate  Him  only  as  the  uncon- 
scious soul  of  the  world,  or  still  more  indefinitely,  as 
an  active  force  ?  I  fear  that  if  we  were  to  follow 
this  suggestion  we  should  get  still  further  away  from 
the  truth,  and  fall  into  a  still  worse  error  in  a  prac- 
tical respect  than  would  be  the  case  in  following  an 
uncritical  Anthropomorphism. 

The  self-conscious  and  self-determining  life  of  man 
is  unquestionably  the  highest  form  of  life  which  we 
know  at  all.  Now  if  it  be  admitted  that  in  the  case 
of  man  it  is  confined  to  the  limit  of  finitude,  and  can- 
not in  this  human  finite  form  find  place  in  God,  yet 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       163 

it  does  not  yet  follow  from  this  that  we  must  deny  to 
God  the  highest  that  we  know  from  our  experience. 
As  there  cannot  lie  less  in  the  cause  than  in  the  effect, 
nor  less  in  the  whole  than  in  the  part,  the  infinite 
principle  of  the  world,  which  produces  the  human 
spirit  along  with  all  else  and  embraces  them  in 
itself,  cannot  possess  the  spiritual  energy  of  life  in  less 
measure,  but  rather  in  a  much  more  perfect  degree, 
than  man.  But  what  gives  the  self-conscious  spirit 
of  man  its  peculiar  prerogative  above  the  sub-human 
life  is  not  the  side  of  finiteness  which  it  has  in  common 
with  the  latter,  but  that  self-activity  of  the  Ego,  which 
distinguishes  itself  as  the  permanent  and  governing 
unity,  from  the  manifold  and  changing  contents  of 
consciousness,  and  which  even  thereby  raises  itself 
above  dependence  on  the  matter  presented  to  it,  and 
lowers  it  to  the  position  of  a  means  serving  its  free 
self.  The  usual  opinion  that  self-consciousness  is  only 
the  distinguishino'  of  the  Ego  from  the  non-Ego  is  not 
correct ;  rather  is  the  self-consciousness  primarily  and 
essentially  a  distinguishing  of  itself  from  itself — that 
is  to  say,  of  the  abiding  and  combining  unity  of  the 
self  from  the  plurality  and  mutability  of  its  contents. 
So  also  the  will  is  not  primarily  a  desire  that  is  directed 
to  external  things  ;  but  it  is  self-determination — i.e., 
determination  of  the  manifold  divided  expressions  of 
life,  by  the  unity  of  the  thinking  which  posits  ends  to 
itself.      Now  it  is  incontestably  true  that  conscious- 


164  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ness  and  will  in  the  case  of  man  presuppose  a  given 
material,  and  therefore  the  fact  on  the  one  hand  of  their 
being  conditioned  by  another,  or  of  passivity  and  fin- 
iteness ;  but  it  is  not  less  certain  on  the  other  hand 
that  just  that  which  distinguishes  the  human  spirit 
from  the  sub-human  life — namely,  its  self-conscious- 
ness and  its  self-determination — does  not  consist  essen- 
tially of  passivity,  but  of  the  spontaneity  of  the  Ego 
as  existing  by  itself,  which  in  the  changing  of  its  ele- 
ments asserts  itself  as  the  persistent  and  governing 
unity  of  that  which  is  manifold  and  changeable.  This 
free  self-activity  which  unfolds  its  inner  unity  into  a 
multiplicity  of  living  forms  and  states,  in  the  act  of 
distinguishing  itself,  abides  with  itself,  and  makes 
itself  actually  into  that  which  it  is  in  itself  potenti- 
ally :  this  is  the  spiritual  being  of  man  by  which  he 
rises  over  all  merely  finite  and  conditioned  existence, 
and  has  a  certain,  although  still  weak,  participation  in 
that  infiniteness  and  unconditionedness  which  is  orig- 
inal and  perfect  only  in  God,  What,  then,  can  hinder 
us  from  thinking  these  qualities,  which  constitute  the 
prerogative  of  the  human  mind  over  spiritless  nature, 
as  being  posited  in  God  in  a  perfect  manner  without 
their  human  limit  ?  Why  should  we  not  accept  some- 
thing analogous  to  the  human  spirit  in  God,  a  self- 
distinguishing  of  His  single  and  eternal  unchangeable 
Self  from  the  plurality  and  changeableness  of  His 
operations,  which  form  the  world  of  divided  temporal 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       165 

phenomena  ?  Without  accepting  this  view  it  would 
be  difficult  to  escape  from  the  pantheistic  opinion, 
that  the  unity  of  God  resolves  itself  into  the  coexist- 
ence of  phenomena  in  space  and  their  succession  in 
time,  so  that  we  can  no  longer  find  in  Him  what 
we  sought  in  Him — namely,  the  connecting  and  ruling 
power  of  the  world-order.  If  there  is  "  a  resting  pole 
in  the  flight  of  phenomena  "  not  merely  in  our  repre- 
sentations but  in  truth,  in  being  itself,  we  shall  have 
to  seek  it  in  the  living  spirit  of  God,  who  asserts 
Himself  as  the  independent  and  permanent  Lord  of 
the  changing  phenomena — as  "  King  of  the  ^ons  " — 
by  this,  that  He  distinguishes  in  His  thinking.  His 
eternal  inner  essence  from  His  changeable  working 
in  the  world.  If  the  world  is  an  order  of  events  hap- 
pening according  to  law  and  purpose,  it  is  the  revela- 
tion of  an  ordering  Spirit,  who  governs  the  becoming 
or  process  of  the  world  with  His  eternal  thoughts,  and 
who  therefore  is  not  Himself  merged  in  its  process, 
but  knows  and  effectuates  Himself  as  eternally  the 
same,  in  distinction  from  the  temporal  beings  of  the 
world.  It  is  certainly  not  to  be  denied  that  we  can- 
not form  a  representation  of  the  infinite  Spirit  whose 
life  is  pure  self-activity  without  any  conditionedness 
and  dependence,  because  that  transcends  all  analogy 
of  our  experience.  But  what  follows  from  this  ?  May- 
hap that  the  thought  of  the  unconditioned  spirit,  be- 
cause not  representable  in  the  mind,  is  also  not  true  ? 


166  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Certainly  not ;  for  the  principle  of  the  world  is  assur- 
edly not  represen table,  under  whatever  categories  we 
may  attempt  it.  Yet  according  to  what  has  been  previ- 
ously adduced,  what  corresponds  best  to  the  need  which 
our  thinking  has  to  recognise  in  the  principle  of  the 
world  the  sufficient  ground  of  the  order  of  the  world, 
is  the  category  of  the  thinking  spirit  which  knows  and 
determines  itself ;  and  accordingly  we  are  entitled  to 
hold  the  view  that  it  is  this  very  category  which  is 
most  fitted  for  the  designation  of  the  divine  essence, 
and  which  comes  nearest  the  truth.  But  what  cer- 
tainly follows  from  the  unrepresentableness  of  the  in- 
finite Spirit  is  the  warning  that  we  are  not  to  attempt 
to  make  an  image  to  ourselves  of  the  inner  life  of  God, 
according  to  human  analogy.  All  the  questions  which 
refer  to  the  inner  nature  of  God,  whether  it  be  to  His 
hidden  decrees,  or  to  the  way  in  which  the  existence 
of  the  world  is  reflected  in  His  inner  being,  or  to  how 
His  eternal  essence  is  related  to  the  succession  of  time 
— -whether  there  is  also  in  Him  a  remembering  and  a 
foreseeing,  or  whether  to  Him  all  is  eternally  the  same 
present,  without  past  and  future, — all  such  and  simi- 
lar questions  pass  entirely  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
knowledge.  In  order  to  be  able  to  answer  them  we 
should  necessarily  have  to  possess  God's  omniscience. 
Here  the  words  of  Scripture  hold  true,  "  j\Iy  thoughts 
are  not  your  thoughts ;  for  as  high  as  the  heavens  are 
above  the  earth,  so  high  are  my  thoughts  above  your 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       167 

thoughts."      How  often  have  these   words   been   for- 
gotten by  theologians  and  philosophers,  who  have  had 
the  hardihood  in  their  titanic  Gnosticism  to  analyse 
the  inmost  nature  of  Deity,  and  to  mete  it  out  in  their 
formulae  !     As  a  reaction  against  this  arrogant  Gnosti- 
cism, the  faint-hearted  Agnosticism  of  the  present  day 
has  a  relative  justification.     It  is,  in  fact,  true  that  we 
are  able  to  know  God  only  so  far  as  He  has  revealed 
Himself  to  us  through  His  working  in  the  whole  order 
of  the  world,  and  still  continually  so  reveals  Himself. 
That   beyond   this   side   which  is  turned   to   us,   this 
being  of  God  for  us,  there  lies  beyond  another  inner 
side   in   the   being    of   God   for   Himself,   is    a    posi- 
tion   which   has   been   established   to   us   as    true   by 
all  that  has  been  said  above.      But  to  try  to  know 
anything  more  closely  concerning  the  JVliat  and  Hoio 
of  this  being  of  God  for  Himself,  to  embrace  it  in 
conceptions,  to  picture  it  in  images, — this  we  ought 
never  to  presume  to  do.     By  doing  so  we  should  inevit- 
ably  fall    into    mythological    fantasies   which   would 
draw  down  the   Holy  mystery  of  the   Godhead   into 
the  common  distinctness  of   earthly  things,  and  put 
empty  fabrications  in  place  of  the  true  revelation  of 
God  in  the  order  of  the  world, — fictions  which  would 
have  as  little  value  for  the  religious  consciousness  of 
the  present  day  as  the  myths  of  the  Gnostics  had  in 
the  second  century.     If  those  who  deny  consciousness 
and  personality  to  God  mean  only  thereby  to  say  that 


168  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

we  cannot  think  of  God  as  affected  with  human  limita- 
tions, there  would  be  nothing  to  object  to  that  position. 
But  the  designations  "  ?Miconscious,"  "  mpersonal,"  may 
but  too  easily  lead  to  the  misunderstanding  that  the 
divine  being  were  less  spiritual,  consequently  more 
imperfect,  than  the  human ;  and  against  this  we  must 
decidedly  protest.  This  misunderstanding  would,  how- 
ever, be  avoided  by  using  the  expressions  "  sujjcrcon- 
scious,"  "  superi^eTSonSil,"  and  accordingly  I  would  hold 
this  to  be  an  incontestable  formula,  in  which  all  those 
who  are  convinced  of  the  ideal  spiritual  essence  of  the 
principle  of  the  world  might  perhaps  unite. 

With  this  view  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine  is  found 
to  be  in  essential  agreement ;  for,  as  is  well  known,  the 
teachers  of  the  Church  from  the  outset,  in  their  deter- 
mination of  the  divine  attributes,  have  striven  so 
earnestly  to  strip  off  the  human  limits  that  very  little 
of  the  human  analogy  remains.  But  the  Church  has 
undoubtedly  always  failed  to  draw  the  necessary  con- 
clusions from  these  her  correct  principles.  While 
her  theologians  accentuated  in  the  strictest  way  the 
timeless  unchangeableness  of  God,  they  yet  repre- 
sented His  omnipotence  as  revealing  itself  now  in 
the  order  of  the  world,  and  again  without  and  con- 
trary to  it  as  miracle  -  working  arbitrariness.  And 
thereby  they  left  the  door  open  to  the  popular  an- 
thropomorphism, with  all  the  adjuncts  of  the  belief 
in    miracles    and    mag;ic.      To    remove    this    inconse- 


REVELATION  IN  THE  NATURAL   ORDER.       169 

quence,  which  has  run  through  the  ecclesiastical 
system  of  doctrine  since  the  time  of  Augustine,  is  a 
pressing  task  of  our  time.  It  lies  as  much  in  the 
interest  of  the  moral  purity  of  the  faith  as  of  the 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  world,  that  the  abstract 
supra-naturalism  of  the  popular  conception  of  divine 
omnipotence  —  that  inheritance  of  Christianity  from 
the  Jewish  and  heathen  ways  of  thinking  —  should 
be  at  last  overcome,  and  the  insight  disseminated  that 
God  is  Spirit,  infinite  Spirit,  who  as  such  reveals  Him- 
self in  the  whole  of  the  rational  order  of  the  world, 
according  to  law  and  purpose,  to  which  order  also  the 
inviolable  conformity  of  nature  to  law  belongs.  It  is 
not  in  the  occasional  interruption  and  disturbance  of  the 
regulated  order  by  individual  miracles,  but  in  the  con- 
stant regularity,  purposiveness,  and  beauty  of  nature, 
that  we  have  to  find  the  sublime  revelation  of  the 
Eternal  Spirit,  who,  according  to  the  words  of  Holy 
Scripture,  is  a  "  God  of  Order,"  and  who  has  wisely 
ordered  all  His  works.  "The  heavens  declare  the 
glory  of  God ;  and  the  firmament  showeth  His  handy - 
work." 


LECTUEE  VI. 

THE  EEVELATIOX  OF  GOD  IN  THE  MOKAL  AND  RELIGIOUS 
ORDER  OF  THE  WORLD. 

The  order  of  the  world  of  Nature,  as  we  saw  in  the  last 
Lecture,  is  not  to  be  understood,  if  it  is  contemplated 
either  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Ego,  or  only 
from  that  of  presented  things  or  objects.  In  the 
former  case  one  reaches  only  a  world  of  thoughts  but 
not  the  real  world  ;  in  the  latter  case  the  ideal  or 
spiritual  constituent,  which  lies  in  the  conception  of 
the  Order  of  the  World,  remains  inexplicable,  and  that 
order  is  resolved  into  a  chaos  of  unconceived  positive 
data.  The  essence  of  the  order  of  nature  consists  rather 
in  the  correlation  of  the  thinking  Ego  and  the  thinkable 
connection  of  things,  a  correlation  in  which  we  found 
the  very  revelation  of  the  creative  reason  as  the  highest 
unity  of  thinking  and  being.  And  exactly  the  same 
holds  true  in  regard  to  the  moral  and  religious  order  of 
the  world.     It,  too,  is  only  to  be  understood  if  we  keep 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  171 

in  view  the  subjective  and  objective  side — the  personal 
consciousness  of  the  world  and  the  historical  com- 
munity of  the  peoples  and  religions,  in  their  constant 
reciprocal  relation  to  each  other,  and  their  conditioned- 
ness  through  one  another.  In  this  very  correlation, 
this  reciprocal  tie  between  the  personal  conscience  and 
moral  society,  mankind  have  always  recognised  the 
revelation  of  a  universal  or  divine  will  combining  the 
two  with  each  other.  It  is  obvious  that  we  no  longer 
regard  this  divine  grounding  of  the  moral  order  in  the 
mythological  manner  prevalent  in  the  childhood  of 
mankind — namely,  as  a  direct  divine  proclamation  of 
laws  given  as  on  Sinai,  or  enunciated  by  divine  oracles 
as  at  Delphi,  We  have  long  since  learned  that  human 
history  proceeds  everywhere  naturally.  But  it  is  asked 
whether  the  explanation  of  the  moral  law  would  be 
already  exhaustively  given,  if  we  only  gave  heed  to  the 
external  process  through  which  the  moral  practices  and 
laws  form  and  alter  themselves  from  motives  of  utility 
and  of  selfish  interests ;  and  whether  there  is  not  also 
here  concealed  under  the  mechanism  of  the  natural 
motives  a  moral  idea,  a  higher  teleological  order,  which 
betrays  its  transcendental  origin  in  tlie  unconditioned- 
ness  of  the  feeling  of  duty  ? 

I  have  already,  in  the  second  of  these  Lectures, 
attempted  to  show  that  the  characteristic  of  the  moral 
feeling  is  not  explained  but  denied,  when  it  is  made  a 
mere  product  of  society  led  by  egoistic  interests.     It  is 


172  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

indeed  true  that  our  moral  consciousness  develops 
itself  only  in  reciprocity  with  society,  that  it  receives 
its  definite  contents,  its  knowledge  of  what  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  riglit  or  wrong,  in  detail,  primarily  from  the 
moral  practices  and  tenets  of  society.  But  what  the 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong  generally  indicates — 
namely,  that  right  raises  an  unconditioned  claim  to  our 
obedience,  that  it  puts  our  will  internally  under  obliga- 
tion quite  apart  from  external  consequences — this  we 
could  only  have  learned  by  instruction  from  others, 
unless  we  had  had  in  our  rational  constitution  by 
nature  the  "  Moral  Sense  " — that  is,  the  capacity  and 
the  impulse  for  the  judging  and  ordering  of  our  mani- 
fold relations  and  motives,  according  to  their  relative 
value  for  the  rational  purpose  of  the  whole.  The 
"  Conscience  "  is  certainly  not  a  sum  of  innate  ideas,  a 
code  of  law  born  in  us,  for  in  that  case  the  mutability 
and  manifoldness  of  the  moral  opinions  of  men  could 
not  possibly  be  explained.  But  just  as  little  is  the 
conscience  merely  a  copy  of  the  moral  practices  and 
tenets  of  society  that  have  become  actual  at  any  time, 
for  then  the  unconditionedness  of  its  obligatory  and 
judicial  authority  would  be  inexplicable.  And  par- 
ticularly inexplicable  would  be  the  fact  of  experience 
that  the  judgment  of  conscience  puts  itself  not  seldom 
in  direct  opposition  to  the  practice  and  tenets  of 
society ;  that  for  the  sake  of  the  higher  ideal  right,  it 
denies  and  combats  the  right  that  exists,  as  we  see  in 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  173 

all  the  reformers  and  heroes  of  moral  progress.  An 
unprejudiced  consideration  of  these  different  facts  of 
experience  will,  as  I  believe,  lead  to  the  result  that  in 
the  conscience  there  are  two  different  factors  bound  up 
into  unity — namely,  an  innate  or  a  j^riori  factor,  and  an 
a  posteriori  or  empirical  factor.  On  the  innate  element 
rests  the  always  self-identical,  abiding,  formal  character 
of  the  judgment  of  conscience,  the  unconditionedness 
with  which  it  commands  and  judges ;  while  upon  the 
acquired  element  rests  the  manifoldness  and  change- 
ableness,  or  the  historical  conditionedness,  of  its  par- 
ticular contents.  Kant  had  well  considered  that  first 
factor  of  the  conscience,  and  had  emphatically  accentu- 
ated the  fact  that  it  is  the  demand  of  the  reason  which 
speaks  to  us  so  categorically.  But  Kant  stopped  half- 
way in  referring  the  moral  law  to  the  subjective  reason 
of  the  separate  individuals,  to  their  thought  of  the  simi- 
lar mode  of  acting  of  all,  to  this  merely  formal  thinking 
without  any  essential  determination  of  purpose ;  and 
as  he  also  again  identified  this  lawgiving  reason  with 
the  freedom  of  individuals,  there  resulted  the  strange 
thought  that  the  freedom  of  each  individual  gives  itself 
the  law  to  which  he  and  all  others  owe  obedience. 

But  how  can  a  law  which  the  freedom  of  every  one 
makes,  be  binding  upon  the  freedom  of  all  ?  Nay  more, 
how  can  it  be  unconditionally  obligatory  even  for  the 
freedom  of  the  subject  himself  who  has  made  it  ?  Will 
it  not  be  capable  of  being  denied  and  annulled  at  any 


174  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

time  by  the  same  freedom  from  which  it  is  thought  to 
have  sprung  ?  In  truth  the  matter  stands,  after  all, 
quite  otherwise :  we  find  the  moral  law  as  a  norm 
which  is  in  nowise  produced  by  our  freedom,  but  which 
is  rather  presupposed  by  it,  and  is  super-ordinated  to 
it ;  and  to  this  norm  we  feel  ourselves  bound — we  owe 
obedience  to  it  whether  we  will  or  not.  An  authority 
demanding  obedience  like  this,  to  whicli  each  individ- 
ual as  well  as  others  knows  himself  bound  to  subordi- 
nate himself,  cannot  possibly  spring  out  of  the  freedom 
of  the  individual  person,  just  as  little  as  it  can  out  of 
the  compulsion  of  society  which  could  only  produce  a 
compulsive  "  must "  but  not  the  moral  obligation  of  the 
conscience.  We  shall  accordingly  recognise  in  the 
conscience  the  manifestation  of  the  universal  rational 
will  which  forms  the  better  self,  the  essential  nature 
of  man  in  accordance  with  the  divine  image,  which 
binds  the  individual  to  a  purposive  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, a  kingdom  of  good  or  of  God,  and  which  is 
therefore  rightly  called  a  revelation  of  the  holy  will 
of  God. 

But  in  seeing  in  the  conscience,  on  the  side  of  its 
a  priori  factor,  the  subjective  revelation  of  the  divine 
will,  we  do  not  mean  thereby  to  exclude  in  any  way  the 
psychological  mediation  and  historical  conditionedness 
of  the  judgments  of  conscience.  As  the  laws  of  our 
thinking,  which  are  originally  inherent  in  our  theoreti- 
cal mind,  can  only  exert  and  develop  themselves  on  the 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  lib 

material  of  knowledge  that  is  presented  by  the  world, 
and  thus  rise  to  our  consciousness,  so  is  it  also  with 
the  norm  of  our  moral  judoments  of  value,  which  is 
originally  inherent  in  our  practical  reason ;  it  develops 
itself  and  comes  into  our  consciousness  only  in  reciprocal 
intercourse  with  society.  The  forms  of  the  social  order 
of  life  which  arise  in  the  course  of  human  coexistence, 
and  which  correspond  to  the  purposes  of  human  com- 
munity, awaken  in  the  individual,  as  he  grows  up  in 
the  midst  of  them,  the  innate  rational  impulse  which 
aims  at  the  establishment  of  an  inner  order,  at  the 
harmonising  of  the  manifold  impulses  and  motives  of 
our  nature.  This  inner  rational  impulse  corresponds 
to  the  external  order  of  society  with  sympathetic  recep- 
tivity;  it  finds  in  that  order  spirit  of  its  spirit,  and 
recognises  it  therefore  as  a  justified  authority.  But  as 
the  inner  moral  capacity  then  develops  and  strengthens 
itself  under  the  education  of  the  external  authority,  the 
matured  personality  comes  to  such  independence  in  its 
moral  judgment  that  it  begins  to  test  even  the  social 
authorities  and  observances  founded  thereon  as  to  how 
far  they  correspond  to  the  absolute  authority,  or  to 
what  is  rational  and  good  in  itself.  Only  in  so  far  as 
the  right  that  exists  in  society  stands  in  harmony  with 
the  idea  of  right  that  presses  itself  internally  upon 
such  an  individual  does  he  recognise  that  right  as 
an  unconditionally  binding  authority — a  distinct  proof 
of  the  fact  that  this  recognition  has  its  proper  basis, 


176  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

not  in  external  facts,  not  in  the  brutal  violence  of  the 
power  that  gives  itself  out  for  right,  but  in  the  idea 
of  right  that  unconditionally  binds  the  conscience,  of 
which  idea  all  positive  right  is  always  only  an  imperfect 
and  perfectible  expression.  In  this  Idea  of  Right  the 
religious  consciousness  recognises  the  revelation  of  the 
holy  will  of  God ;  and  this  Idea  creates  an  organism 
for  itself  in  the  external  right  of  the  social  order,  in 
which  organism,  although  it  is  never  perfectly  realised, 
but  is  always  striving  to  realise  itself  more  perfectly, 
the  religious  consciousness  recognises  the  revelation  of 
the  righteousness  of  God. 

The  religious  conviction  that  the  divine  righteousness 
rules  over  human  fates,  appears  to  be  opposed  by  the 
experience  that  right  often  succumbs  and  that  wrong 
triumphs,  that  the  just  man  suffers  and  perishes,  while 
the  godless  man  enjoys  an  undisturbed  prosperity.  It 
is  from  these  experiences  that  have  arisen  those 
doubts  of  the  righteousness  of  the  government  of  the 
world  which  we  find  not  merely  among  the  heathen, 
but  which  have  likewise  received  touching  expression 
at  the  hands  of  many  of  the  Biblical  writers  (as  in 
Psalms,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Job).  But  belief  always  again 
rescued  itself  from  these  mysteries  of  the  actual  world 
through  the  hope  of  future  adjustment ;  it  demanded  that 
the  proof  of  the  retributive  justice  which  appeared  to 
be  missing  in  our  present  experience  must  show  itself 
in  some  sort  of  adjustment  and  establishment  of  the 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  177 

right  order  in  this  world  or  the  next.  From  this 
resulted  the  so-called  proof  for  God's  existence  drawn 
from  the  idea  of  retribution.  Kant  appropriated  it  in 
his  well-known  postulate  that  there  must  be  a  God  who 
guarantees  the  establishment  of  the  highest  good  in  the 
combination  of  happiness  with  virtue.  Thus  appre- 
hended, this  ''Proof"  is  naturally  untenable,  for  objec- 
tion is  rightly  raised  against  it  by  the  question.  What, 
then,  gives  us,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  rigoristic 
Kantian  morals,  the  right  to  demand  a  rewarding  of 
virtue  by  happiness  ?  Besides,  Hume  had  already  re- 
minded us  that  it  is  a  very  arbitrary  conclusion  to  in- 
fer from  the  failing  of  the  wished-for  retribution  in  that 
sphere  of  reality  which  we  alone  know,  its  coming  in  a 
problematic  future.  Of  course,  viewed  logically,  this 
is  quite  inadmissible ;  but  viewed  psychologically,  the 
judgment  presents  itself  more  favourably :  for  what 
else  ultimately  is  the  confident  demand  of  a  future 
retribution  than  just  the  childlike  expression  of  the 
firm  faith  that  right  must  still  remain  right,  and  show 
itself  to  be  the  victorious  power  over  reality,  whereas 
wrong  must  be  confounded  ?  This  is  the  faith  in  the 
"  Moral  World-Order,"  which  Fichte  explained  as  the 
kernel  of  the  Kantian  postulate  and  put  in  the  place  of 
the  belief  in  God,  and  which  also  the  ethical  idealists 
of  the  present  day  (such  as  Matthew  Arnold)  declare 
to  be  the  kernel  of  religion  in  general. 

We  may  certainly  honour  the  moral  value  of  this 
VOL.  I.  M 


178  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

faith,  and  yet  doubt  whether  it  is  fitted  to  be  a  sub- 
stitute for  faith  in  God.  To  me  it  cannot  but  appear 
that  the  conception  of  the  "  Moral  World-Order  "  suffers 
in  most  of  those  who  hold  it  from  an  obscurity  which 
is  more  or  less  concealed  by  rhetoric  and  a  wavering 
between  two  very  different  things — namely,  between 
the  represented  ideal  of  an  order  which  ought  to  be, 
and  the  actual  yet  not  ideal  order  in  the  world  of 
experience.  The  latter  order,  as  being  a  fact  of  ex- 
perience, cannot  be  an  object  of  faith  ;  and  besides, 
it  suffers  from  so  great  defects  that  we  can  be  little 
edified  by  its  contemplation,  but  feel  ourselves  driven 
to  rise  above  it  to  the  Ideal.  The  Ideal,  on  the  other 
hand,  however  perfect  we  may  think  it,  always  suffers 
from  the  one  defect,  that  it  is  merely  a  representation 
of  our  subjective  wishes  and  hopes,  and  is  separated 
by  a  wide  gulf  from  the  world  of  the  actual.  Then 
the  great  question  arises.  How  can  the  Ideal  become 
actual  and  the  actuality  ideal  ?  The  solution  of  this 
decisive  question  appears  to  me  to  be  hopeless  so  long 
as  there  is  not  known,  besides  the  unreal  Ideal  and 
the  unideal  reality,  a  third  thing  in  which  the  syn- 
thesis of  the  two  sides  would  be  guaranteed.  For  if 
the  "  Moral  World-Order "  were  only  the  subjective 
thought  of  myself  and  of  certain  other  men,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  see  what  would  ever  entitle  us  to 
expect  its  realisation  in  the  objective  world.  Such 
a  thought  would  then  have  no  more  significance  than 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  179 

any  pious  wish  or  beautiful  dream.  All  the  poetry 
which  we  might  lay  into  this  dream  could  not  deceive 
us  for  a  moment  regarding  the  total  groundlessness  of 
our  hope  of  its  realisation.  That  thereby  the  religious 
faith  would  dissolve  itself  into  an  aesthetic  play  with 
unreal  illusions  is  clear.  If  we  would  guard  ourselves 
against  this,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  only  view  re- 
maining is  that  our  thought  of  the  "  Moral  World- 
Order  "  is  not  merely  our  human  Ideal,  but  the  divine 
idea  of  the  Good,  revealing  itself  in  our  moral  con- 
sciousness on  the  one  side,  and  in  the  historical 
process  of  the  development  of  human  civilisation  on 
the  other ;  and  that  it  therefore  is  a  purposive  thought 
of  the  Infinite  Spirit,  who  is  at  once  the  Almighty 
Ground  and  the  Eternal  Law  of  the  development  of 
the  world  in  time.  Then,  but  also  only  then,  have 
we  a  rational  ground  for  the  belief  that  the  world  is 
constituted  for  the  realisation  of  the  good ;  that  the 
good,  because  it  is  one  with  the  almighty  will  of  God, 
is  the  power  which  will  conquer  the  world  in  infinite 
progress,  as  it  has  already  hitherto  conquered  it  in 
part.  When  we  thus  look  with  the  eye  of  the  faith 
which  is  based  on  God  into  the  historical  world,  we 
also  find  infallibly  in  it,  notwithstanding  all  its  evils 
and  painful  disharmonies  in  detail,  the  traces  of  the 
ruling  of  that  governing  righteousness  and  wisdom, 
which  so  directs  the  course  of  things  that,  in  spite 
of  all  the  wrong  in  individual  things,  right  neverthe- 


180  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

less  comes  in  the  whole  of  humanity  to  an  ever 
firmer  and  purer  existence.  All  the  resistance  which 
the  realisation  of  the  good  finds  everywhere  in  detail 
cannot  hinder  us  from  recognising  its  victorious  pro- 
gress in  the  whole  of  the  world's  history ;  and  the  very 
fact  that  it  constantly  asserts  itself  only  in  conflict 
with  the  resisting  will  of  individuals — nay  more,  that 
their  very  resistance  contributes  as  a  spur  and  stimu- 
lus to  the  ever  richer  and  more  powerful  develop- 
ment of  the  moral  idea — enables  us  to  recognise  the 
more  distinctly  the  revelation  of  the  divine  will  as 
the  ground  and  law  of  the  moral  process  of  humanity. 
There  lies  a  deep  truth  in  the  words  of  the  apostle, 
"For  God  hath  concluded  them  all  in  disobedience, 
that  He  might  have  mercy  upon  all."  The  holy  right- 
eousness of  God  does  not  exert  itself  in  order  that  it 
may  keep  men  in  the  unfree  innocence  of  childhood, 
and  prevent  any  disunion  of  their  will  with  the  good ; 
but  it  celebrates  its  highest  triumph  in  this,  that  it 
reconciles  those  who  are  so  disunited,  and  transforms 
sinners  into  saints. 

We  have  thus  already  come  upon  the  revelation  of 
God  in  Religion.  That  it  is  customary  to  limit  the  con- 
ception of  "  Eevelation  "  to  Eeligion,  or  at  least  to  refer 
that  conception  to  it  in  quite  a  special  sense,  has  so  far 
a  good  reason  in  its  favour,  seeing  that  here  more  than 
anywhere  else  God  enters  into  the  human  conscious- 
ness immediately  as  God — i.e.,  as  the  one  foundation 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  181 

and  concluding  goal  of  the  whole  World-Order  and  of 
the  whole  life  of  man, — as  the  Eternal  One  who,  as  it 
were,  unveils  Himself  to  the  finite  Spirit  face  to  face. 
But  the  opinion  held  that  on  that  account  the  religious 
revelation  is  absolutely  different  from  all  other  revela- 
tion, and  that  as  purely  "  supernatural "  it  stands  out 
of  comparison  with — nay,  even  in  opposition  to — all 
revelation  in  the  natural  and  moral  order  of  the  world, 
is  an  error  of  dogmatic  reflection  which  cannot  be 
maintained  before  an  unprejudiced  view  of  religious 
history.  Eeligious  revelation  is  also  an  ordered  reve- 
lation, mediated  both  by  the  religious  self-conscious- 
ness and  by  the  religious  fellowship.  In  the  latter 
the  individual  finds  the  accumulated  sum  of  religious 
experiences,  which  constitutes  the  common  conscious- 
ness of  a  community,  and  which  find  expression  in  their 
forms  of  belief  and  worship.  Through  the  communi- 
cation and  appropriation  of  this  religious  common  con- 
sciousness, the  individual  religious  life  is  awakened 
and  formed,  just  as  the  individual  moral  life  is  by  the 
social  moralisation,  and  as  the  theoretical  life  is  by  the 
universal  fund  of  knowledge  and  culture  in  the  sur- 
rounding circle.  But  this  capability  of  cultivation  on 
the  part  of  the  individual  presupposes  a  corresponding 
spiritual  capacity,  the  rational  impulse  innate  in  the 
man,  which  as  theoretical  strives  towards  the  ordering 
of  his  representations  under  the  idea  of  Truth,  as  prac- 
tical towards  the  ordering  of  the  impulses  of  his  will 


182  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

under  the  idea  of  the  Good,  and  as  religious  towards 
a  supreme  unity  of  all  that  is  true  and  good  under  the 
idea  of  God.  The  "  religious  impulse  "  is  therefore  an 
exercise  of  the  same  universal  rational  capacity  which 
lies  at  the  basis  of  science  and  morality ;  but  it  is 
the  potentiated  closing  exercise  of  that  capacity,  for  it 
tends  not  merely  towards  the  ordering  of  the  one  or 
other  side  of  consciousness,  but  towards  the  harmonious 
ordering  of  the  tvJiole  personal  life,  under  the  highest 
regulative  idea,  the  subjective  correlate  of  the  absolute 
principle  of  the  universe.  But  we  only  become  con- 
scious of  this  innate  religious  capacity  within  us,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  theoretical  and  moral  capacities,  by 
the  fact  that  it  actually  develops  itself;  and,  moreover, 
it  can  only  develop  itself  in  reciprocal  intercourse  with 
the  religious  community,  of  which  the  individual  is  a 
member.  This  coexistence  and  separate  existence  of 
the  two  sides,  of  the  individual  religious  subject  and  of 
the  historical  community,  constitutes  the  "  Eeligious 
World-Order,"  which  is  the  highest  stage  of  the  order 
of  the  world,  and  the  one  in  which  the  revelation  of 
God  completes  itself  in  the  most  spiritual  form.  The 
religious  revelation  is  therefore  to  be  sought  neither 
merely  in  the  pious  soul  of  the  individual,  who  indeed 
only  obtains  liis  definite  content  in  reciprocal  inter- 
course with  his  community ;  nor  is  it  merely  to  be 
obtained  in  the  historical  life  of  the  religious  com- 
munity, which  indeed  only  contains  the  sum  of  the 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  183 

religious  experiences  which  have  been  handed  down 
through  many  generations  by  the  intercourse  of  the 
individuals  with  each  other.  The  objective  religion  of 
the  historical  community  is  a  product  of  the  historical 
development  of  the  religious  capacity  of  its  individuals, 
and  is  at  all  times  capable  and  needful  of  further  de- 
velopment through  new  contributions  of  the  individuals. 
It  is  just  in  this  advancing  development  of  the  religious 
capacities  of  our  race,  under  the  reciprocal  furtherance 
of  the  individuals  through  the  community  and  of  the 
community  through  the  individuals,  that  the  ordered 
course  of  religious  revelation  consists.  And  it  shows 
itself  therein  to  be  as  conformable  to  law  as  the  revela- 
tion in  the  natural  and  moral  order  of  the  world.  If 
we  turn  our  attention  especially  to  those  epochs  and 
phenomena  of  the  history  of  religion  to  which  the 
conception  "  Eevelation "  is  wont  to  be  applied  in  a 
pre-eminent  sense,  we  perceive  everywhere,  within  as 
well  as  without  the  Biblical  religion,  the  same  rela- 
tion of  inner  and  outer,  personal  and  social,  traditional 
and  new,  as  that  belongs  generally  to  the  order  of  the 
historical  life. 

It  is  a  defect  of  the  present  realistic  theory  of  de- 
velopment that  it  underestimates  or  entirely  overlooks 
the  significance  of  personality  in  history,  and  endeavours 
to  find  the  active  forces  of  progress  only  in  the  masses. 
The  masses,  however,  are  never  spiritually  creative. 
All  new  world-moving  ideas  and  ideals  have  proceeded 


184  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

from  individual  personalities,  and  even  they  have  not 
arbitrarily  devised  them  or  found  them  out  by  laborious 
reflection,  as  men  find  out  scientific  doctrines  by  inves- 
tigation ;  but  they  have  received  them  by  that  involun- 
tary intuition,  which  is  also  participated  in  by  the 
artistic  genius,  and  which  everywhere  forms  the  privi- 
lege of  original  genius,  to  whose  eye  the  essence  of 
things  and  the  destination  of  men  are  disclosed.  But 
certain  as  it  is  that  every  revelation  is  primarily  a 
personal  living  experience,  received  and  formed  in  the 
depths  of  the  individual  genius,  yet  in  the  thousand- 
fold echo  which  its  communication  awakens  in  others, 
there  is  always  betrayed  the  fact  that  there  has  only 
come  to  right  expression  in  it  what  had  already  slum- 
bered unconsciously  or  lay  darkly  divined  in  the  souls 
of  others.  Not  that  on  that  account  the  revelation 
is  to  be  considered  as  a  product  of  the  common  con- 
sciousness of  its  time — that  is,  of  the  opinions  of  the 
majority  just  then  dominant.  To  these  opinions  the 
prophet  of  higher  truth  stands  at  all  times  rather  in  a 
polemical  relation,  as  shown  by  innumerable  examples 
in  history,  from  the  time  of  the  Old  Testament  prophets 
down  to  the  present  day.  Yet  in  all  such  cases  the  reve- 
lation of  the  religious  genius  is  the  expression  of  what 
the  best  men  of  their  time  have  divined  and  longed 
for,  the  unveiling  of  their  own  better  self,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  their  own  highest  hopes.  It  is  just  upon  this 
that  the  power  of  a  revelation  proceeding  from  an  in- 


THE  MORAL   AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  185 

dividual  to  form  a  community,  rests.  While  the  pro- 
phet testifies  by  word  and  deed  of  the  divine  truth 
which  has  become  revealed  to  him,  and  which  domin- 
ates his  whole  personal  life,  he  works  through  the  col- 
lective impression  of  his  personality  attractively  upon 
others,  awakens  in  them  the  same  spiritual  experiences, 
inspires  them  for  the  same  ideals,  and  thus  founds  a 
common  higher  life,  a  community  of  believers  in  which 
the  revelation  of  the  one  becomes  the  common  con- 
sciousness of  the  many.  In  this  very  power  to  awaken 
faith,  to  produce  a  common  spiritual  life  in  many,  lies 
the  self-proof  which  the  revelation  needs  for  its  truth 
wherever  it  appears.  Along  with  this  "  Proof  of  the 
Spirit  and  of  Power  "  which  he  who  is  seized  by  it  im- 
mediately experiences  in  his  believing  surrender  to  it, 
any  other  proofs  from  external  "  Signs  and  Wonders  " 
are  superfluous  and  useless ;  for  as  all  revelation  is 
originally  an  inner  living  experience — the  springing  up 
of  religious  truth  in  the  heart — no  external  event  can 
belong  in  itself  to  revelation,  no  matter  whether  it  be 
naturally  or  supernaturally  brought  about.  At  most  it 
may  be  an  accompanying  sign  of  such  revelation  by 
which  the  authority  of  the  prophet  is  attested.  But 
even  the  attestation  of  the  person  of  the  prophet  is 
effected  much  more  surely  by  the  collective  impression, 
and  the  effect  of  his  appearance  upon  the  world  of  his 
time  and  after-ages,  than  by  extraordinary  single  miracles 
which  he  may  have  performed.      In  the  case  of  these 


186  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

miracles  it  always  remains  very  difficult,  even  for  his 
contemporaries,  and  still  more  so  for  those  who  live  in 
later  times,  to  distinguish  what  actually  happened  from 
the  embellishment  of  the  narrators  and  the  additions  of 
legends ;  and  then  the  interpretation  of  what  happened 
must  still  remain  so  problematical  that  a  firm  convic- 
tion of  religious  truth  is  not  capable  of  being  founded 
upon  it.  Let  us  not  forget  that  even  Jesus  Christ  was 
so  far  from  binding  religious  belief  to  external  signs, 
that  He  rather  reproves  those  for  their  unbelief  who 
sought  after  such  signs ;  and  He  referred  them  instead 
of  this  to  the  "  signs  of  the  time  " — i.e.,  to  the  prognos- 
tications and  warnings  which  the  historical  situation 
of  the  present  contains  for  the  intelligent  mind. 

That  the  religious  revelation  is  a  historically  ordered 
revelation  is  shown  further  by  this,  that  it  never 
appears  unprepared  or  abruptly,  but  always  "  when  the 
fulness  of  the  time  has  come" — that  is  to  say,  when 
the  inner  and  outer  religious  and  social  conditions  of 
its  possibility  are  given,  when  the  average  common 
consciousness  is  so  far  matured  that  it  is  able  to  ap- 
prehend the  new  ideas,  when  the  external  state  of 
society  is  favourable  to  a  spiritual  crisis  and  movement, 
and  especially  when  the  need  of  the  time  increases  the 
lono'ing  of  the  heart  for  higher  truth.  Then  the  new 
appears  as  the  "  fulfilment "  of  the  old,  in  the  negative 
and  positive  sense,  abolishing  what  was  untrue  in  it, 
and  preserving  and  clarifying  what  in  it  was  true.     It 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  187 

is  a  regularly  recurring  characteristic  of  all  religious 
heroes,  reformers,  and  founders  of  religion,  that  they 
never  wish  merely  to  bring  in  a  new  thing ;  but  with 
their  opposition  to  the  immediate  actuality  of  the 
present,  they  yet  always  appear  to  attach  themselves 
to  the  old,  and  even  to  set  before  themselves  openly  as 
their  end  the  restoration  of  the  purer  faith  of  the 
fathers.  Thus  the  prophets  of  Israel  appealed  to  the 
fathers  of  Israel,  Jesus  appealed  to  the  prophets,  and 
Luther  to  apostles  and  prophets.  Yet  in  all  such  cases 
the  attachment  to  the  old  was  not  simply  mere  restora- 
tion of  it,  for  in  history  there  are  no  simple  repetitions. 
Old  truths  are  put  by  their  application  to  new  relations 
in  time,  under  new  points  of  view ;  they  are  brought 
into  new  combinations ;  certain  sides  which  were  for- 
merly important  retreat  into  the  background,  new  posi- 
tions become  central,  and  new  consequences  are  drawn. 
Thus  out  of  the  old  there  actually  always  arises  a  new 
thing  which  now  corresponds  to  the  wants  of  its  pres- 
ent time,  in  the  same  way  as  the  old  had  corresponded 
to  the  earlier  stage  of  liuman  development.  The  con- 
tinuity and  conformity  to  law  of  the  development,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  radical  revolution,  consists  in  this, 
that  there  is  not  simply  a  mere  breach  made  with  the 
traditional,  but  that  the  valuable  product  of  the  past 
is  received  and  made  a  constituent  part  of  higher  truth, 
and  is  therefore  preserved  and  at  the  same  time  de- 
veloped, while  that  which  in  the  old  had  significance  only 


188  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

for  its  time  is  set  aside,  whether  it  be  by  direct  conflict 
or  by  silent  repulsion.  This  is  the  immanent  criticism 
which  carries  on  its  function  in  all  living  development, 
and  not  less  in  the  development  of  the  religious  revela- 
tion. That  in  this  sphere  the  criticism  which  history 
itself  in  its  progress  performs  on  the  old  is  recognised 
with  more  difficulty  than  in  other  spheres,  and  is  in- 
deed very  often  entirely  denied,  is  easily  explained  from 
the  conservatism  of  the  religious  consciousness,  which 
fears  for  the  security  of  its  faith,  if  it  were  to  admit 
the  humanly  imperfect  even  in  the  history  of  revela- 
tion and  the  capability  of  a  higher  perfection  in  every 
form  of  development  in  time.  And  yet  it  ought  not 
to  be  difficult  to  perceive  that  we  men  are  never  able 
to  possess  the  treasure  of  divine  truth  otherwise  than 
in  the  earthen  vessels  of  our  limited  forms  of  conscious- 
ness, which  are  obscured  by  many  an  error  and  pre- 
judice. Dr  James  Martineau  says  excellently  on  this 
subject :  "  Whatever  higher  inspiration  visits  our  world 
mvist  use  our  nature  as  its  organ,  must  take  the  mould 
of  our  respective  capacity  and  mingle  with  the  existing 
life  of  thought  and  affection.  How  then  can  it  both 
assume  their  form  and  escape  their  limitation  ?  how 
flow  into  the  currents  of  our  minds  without  being 
diluted  there  ? "  ^ 

However  high  a  religious  hero  may  tower  above  his 
time,  yet  he  is  always  in  many  respects  a  child  of  his 

^  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  p.  289. 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  189 

age,  prepossessed  by  its  ideas  and  expectations.  Nay 
more,  he  can  only  work  upon  his  age  by  the  fact  that 
he  has  his  spiritual  roots  in  it,  and  consequently  also 
still  has  a  certain  share  of  its  limitations ;  and  hence 
the  new,  wliich  he  reveals,  can  always  pass  only  rela- 
tively beyond  the  old,  and  only  gradually  loosen  itself 
entirely  from  its  bonds.  Eevelation  in  unveiling  new 
truths  always  sets  new  tasks  for  the  advancing  know- 
ledge of  its  believers.  Thus  Christ  Himself  says  in  the 
Gospel  of  John :  "  I  liave  yet  many  things  to  say  unto 
you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now.  Howbeit,  when 
He,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  He  will  guide  you  into 
all  truth."  And  the  apostle,  who  had  recognised  the 
"  new  "  of  Christianity  in  its  relation  to  Judaism  more 
acutely  than  all  the  others,  yet  also  confesses  of  himself : 
"  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly  ;  now  I  know 
in  part."  "  Not  as  if  I  had  already  attained,  either 
were  already  perfect ;  but  I  follow  after,  if  that  I  may 
apprehend." 

The  historical  order  of  the  religious  revelation,  that 
it  is  a  development  from  lower  to  ever  higher  stages, 
a  development  in  which  the  new  is  always  at  once 
the  fulfilment  and  the  criticism  of  the  old,  becomes 
nowhere  more  clearly  apparent  than  in  the  relation 
of  Christianity  to  Judaism.  '-'Think  not  that  T  am 
come  to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets ;  I  am  not 
come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil."  This  expression,  which 
stands  solemnly  at  the  culminating-point  of  the  Sermon 


190  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

on  the  Mount,  has  been  authoritative  for  the  Christian 
Church  at  all  times.  It  decidedly  rejected  from  the 
beginning  the  opinion  of  Marcion,  that  the  Christian 
God  is  another  than  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament,  as 
a  heresy ;  and  it  has  recognised  in  the  law  of  Moses 
and  in  the  prophets  the  revelation  of  the  one  true 
God,  who  "  at  sundry  times,  and  in  divers  manners, 
spake  in  time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  pro- 
phets," and  who  has  "in  these  last  days  spoken  unto 
us  by  His  Son"  (Heb.  i.  1,  2).  And  in  fact,  if  a 
religious  revelation  is  to  be  found  anywhere,  it  is 
certainly  to  be  found  in  the  spirit  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  who  knew  that  God  is  the  will  of  the  morally 
good.  This  knowledge,  which  is  of  infinite  reach  and 
range,  arose  among  them  many  centuries  before  Plato, 
and  they  grasped  this  truth  still  more  purely  than 
that  profound  thinker.  For  while  in  Plato  the  morally 
good,  in  the  genuine  Greek  way,  still  blends  in  one 
with  the  beautiful,  and  is  therefore  not  yet  recognised 
in  its  full  purity  as  the  sublime  ideal  in  its  deep 
opposition  to  natural  existence ;  in  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phets, on  the  other  hand,  God  is  the  holy  will  of  the 
good,  who,  infinitely  exalted  above  human  weakness, 
makes  His  absolutely  perfect  purpose  to  men  the  law 
of  their  life,  and  lays  claim  to  unconditional  obedience. 
And  in  the  light  of  this  moral  ideal  they  have  not 
merely  judged  the  life  of  individuals,  but  have  also 
interpreted  the  fates  of  their  people  and  of  the  nations 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.  191 

of  the  world  generally.  Heathenism  has  indeed  a 
nature-religion  and  a  nature -philosophy,  but  it  has 
neither  a  religious  view  of  history  nor  a  philosophy 
of  history  ;  for  it  knew  no  absolute  final  moral  purpose 
to  the  attainment  of  which  the  fates  of  the  nations 
were  to  serve  as  means.  Israel,  on  the  other  hand, 
knew  such  a  purpose  of  history — namely,  the  realisa- 
tion of  a  kingdom  of  God,  of  a  human  fellowship  and 
community  corresponding  to  the  holy  will  of  God. 
In  the  light  of  this  ideal  the  present  always  appeared 
insufficient  to  the  prophets,  and  consequently  their 
look  was  constantly  directed  to  the  future.  Their 
belief  in  God  was  at  the  same  time  the  hope  of  a 
divine  future  for  their  people  and  for  human  society; 
it  was  the  spur  which  prevented  them  from  resting 
sated  and  satisfied  with  any  given  things,  but  gave 
their  wills  infinite  energy  to  combat  the  opposition 
of  the  present  to  their  idea,  and  to  keep  their  gaze 
fixed  on  the  ideal  time  of  salvation  as  the  goal  of 
their  longing,  striving,  combating,  and  enduring.  Thus 
did  they  become  the  path-finders  and  leaders  of  our 
race  upon  its  toilsome  way  to  the  moral  ideal  of 
humanity.  And  because  they  recognised  this  goal  as 
the  purpose  of  God,  they  found  everywhere  in  the 
living  events  of  history  the  ruling  of  a  purposive 
righteousness  and  wisdom,  which  the  course  of  nature, 
as  well  as  the  politics  of  the  powers  of  the  world,  was 
compelled  to  subserve  as  a  means  in  order  to  carry 


192  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

forward  the  eternal  end  to  its  fulfilment — that  is  to 
say,  as  a  means  for  the  chastisement,  the  purification, 
the  education  of  the  people  of  God,  out  of  whom  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  to  come.  Thus  did  they  become 
— not  for  Israel  alone,  but  for  mankind — the  teachers 
of  the  religious  view  of  the  world  which  contemplates 
all  that  is  perishing,  all  that  is  transitory,  sub  specie 
cetemitatis ;  which  makes  the  brightening  gleam  of 
hope  fall  upon  all  that  is  dark  in  the  present ;  and 
which  supports  man's  power  of  enduring  and  combat- 
ing, by  fixing  his  gaze  upon  the  infinite  infallible  vic- 
tory of  the  divine  cause,  the  good  and  the  true. 

And  yet  even  the  illumined  gaze  of  these  Old  Testa- 
ment men  of  God  was  still  confined  within  the  limits 
of  their  own  people  and  of  their  own  age.  True  as  the 
thought  was,  that  history  is  the  means  used  by  the 
divine  righteousness  for  the  realisation  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  yet  the  idea  of  this  kingdom  was  still  imperfect, 
because  it  was  too  narrowly  limited  to  the  particular 
people  of  Israel.  And  from  this  there  resulted  a 
sensible  obscuration  of  the  idea  of  God — as  if  God 
were  only  the  God  of  the  Jews  and  not  also  of  the 
heathen,  as  if  He  had  only  benevolence  for  the 
former  and  malevolence  for  the  latter ; — an  opinion 
which  in  the  post-prophetic  Judaism  became  that 
religious  pride  which  we  encounter  in  such  a  repug- 
nant form  in  the  Pharisees  of  the  time  of  Jesus.  In 
like  manner  the  true  thought  that  the  will  of   God 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   ORDER.  193 

is  the  law  of  our  life  still  suffers  in  Judaism  from  a 
sensible  defect.  While  the  will  of  God  was  identified 
with  the  sum  of  the  individual  dogmas  which  grew  out 
of  the  priestly  legislation  in  the  course  of  centuries, 
and  when  the  same  unchangeable  authority  was 
assigned  to  all  these,  and  their  exact  fulfilment  was 
made  the  chief  thing,  there  arose  that  external  legality 
which  put  the  truly  pious  disposition  below  the  perfor- 
mance of  religious  observances,  and  turned  religion  into 
a  legal  relationship  of  performance  and  reward.  In 
such  a  relation  no  inner  unity  of  the  human  will 
with  the  divine  will  is  reached,  but  man  sees  in  God 
only  the  retributive  Judge  before  whose  punishment 
he  trembles  or  to  whose  reward  he  lays  claim.  Slav- 
ish fear  and  self-righteous  reckoning  with  God  are  the 
unlovely  features  of  this  Jewish  religion  of  law,  to 
which  the  ethical  idealism  of  the  prophets  had  de- 
generated, and  these  traits  strike  us  most  visibly  in 
Pharisaism. 

It  was  this  side  of  the  Old  Testament  religion  to 
which  Christianity  took  a  critical  and  destroying 
attitude,  while  it  revealed  a  new  and  higher  knowledge 
of  God.  "  For,"  says  Paul,  "  ye  have  not  received  the 
spirit  of  bondage  again  to  fear ;  but  ye  have  received  the 
Spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father."  In 
the  pure  soul  of  Jesus  the  God  of  the  prophets  and 
Psalms  had  become  revealed  as  the  merciful  Father 
who  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  just  and  the  unjust, 

VOL.  I.  N 


194  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  whose  sons  we  are  all  to  become,  by  becoming  like 
Him  in  merciful  brotherly  love.  It  is  true  that  even 
here  the  will  of  God  is,  and  continues  to  be,  the  holy 
law,  with  whose  fulfilment  or  non-fulfilment  life  or 
death  for  every  one  is  connected ;  but  the  content  of 
the  divine  will  is  no  longer  formed  by  a  sum  of  ex- 
ternal dogmas,  but  is  comprehended  in  the  one  great 
commandment,  "  Love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  God's  require- 
ment in  the  new  covenant  to  man  is  not  less  but 
greater  than  in  Judaism ;  for  He  requires  nothing  less 
than  the  surrender  of  the  whole  undivided  heart  to  His 
will.  But  the  will  of  God  has  as  its  end  nothing  but 
the  good — that  is,  man's  becoming  perfect  in  likeness  to 
God,  in  which  his  true  good,  his  eternal  salvation,  is 
also  contained.  Thus  the  good  is  here  no  longer  a  hard 
obligation  which  constantly  excites  the  self-will  only  to 
rebel  against  it;  but  it  is  the  Ideal  in  which  man 
recognises  the  requirement  of  his  own  true  being,  to 
which  he  therefore  surrenders  himself,  not  in  blind 
obedience,  but  in  free  and  trusting  love,  certain  of  this, 
that  in  the  surrender  of  himself  to  the  divine  purpose 
of  the  universal  Good — to  God's  kingdom — he  does  not 
lose  his  soul,  but  preserves  it ;  that  it  is  only  in  unity 
with  God  that  he  becomes  truly  man,  and  free  and  happy. 
When  man  gets  this  experience  of  the  liberating  and 
blessing  power  of  goodness,  of  love,  and  of  faith,  in 
himself  and  others,  he  recognises  therein  the  working 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.         195 

of  the  divine  spirit.  He  recognises,  therefore,  that 
God  does  not  as  the  holy  lawgiver  only  command  the 
good,  but  that  as  the  holy  spirit  of  love  and  inspiration 
he  creates  and  efiectuates  the  good  itself  (as  Augustine 
said,  "Jule  quod  vis  et  da  quod  jubes  ").  But  then  God  is 
the  good  not  merely  in  the  sense  of  a  sublime  far-off 
Ideal,  v^^hich  stands  in  judgment  over  against  the  weak 
existence  of  men ;  but  this  Ideal  is  at  the  same  time  an 
ever  active  reality ;  it  is  the  power  to  realise  itself 
in  the  hearts  of  men  and  in  the  historical  life  of  man- 
kind ;  it  is  the  power  of  the  world,  the  truth  of  Being 
in  general. 

If  we  now  look  back  from  this  height  of  the  Christian 
knowledge  of  God  to  the  development  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  God  in  the  history  of  religion,  it  can  hardly 
escape  us  that  that  high  point  was  the  goal  to  which 
the  whole  development  strove  from  the  beginning,  and 
which  is  already  prefigured  in  the  religious  capacity  of 
man.  For  in  some  form  or  other  these  two  things  are 
always  contained  together  in  the  belief  in  God  :  an  Ideal 
of  what  ought  to  be,  and  that  this  is,  at  the  same  time, 
the  power  and  the  ground  of  real  being.  That  God  is 
the  Ideal  of  moral  goodness,  that  He  is  the  Holy  Will, 
was  the  revelation  of  Israel.  But  that  this  will  of 
Goodness  is  the  love  which  communicates  itself  to  us, 
and  which  has  constituted  and  guided  nature  and 
history,  in  order  to  realise  itself  in  humanity  as  a  king- 
dom of  love — this  is  the  revelation  of  Christianity,  in 


196  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

which  all  the  religious  presentiment  and  longing  of 
humanity  before  Christ  comes  to  its  fulfilment.  Now, 
as  the  end  of  a  development  must  also  always  be 
thought  of  as  its  ground  and  law,  we  shall  now  be 
entitled  to  say  that  the  love  which  was  recognised  at 
the  culminating-point  of  the  history  of  religion  as  the 
essence  of  God,  was  even  from  the  very  beginning  the 
ground  of  the  human  consciousness  of  God,  which 
indeed  could  only  disclose  itself  gradually  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  men,  in  the  slow  march  of  the  human 
development,  as  the  content  of  their  belief  in  God. 
This  is  the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term  when  we 
designate  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  religious  Order 
of  the  World  as  revelation  of  His  love. 

"  Thou  hast  created  us  for  Thyself,  and  our  heart  is 
restless  till  it  has  come  to  rest  in  Thee."  This  beauti- 
ful expression  of  Augustine  is  in  fact  the  key  to  the 
whole  history  of  religion.  In  the  universal  experience 
that  man's  nature  is  so  constituted  that  some  kind  of 
consciousness  of  God  is  inevitable  to  him,  although  it 
may  be  only  a  presentiment  or  a  search,  we  must 
recognise  the  original  revelation  of  the  love  of  God. 
All  human  consciousness  of  God  presupposes  a  self- 
communication  of  God,  a  working  of  the  divine  Logos 
in  the  finite  spirit.  Now  as  the  consciousness  of  God 
is  a  constitutive  element  of  the  human  species,  it  may 
be  rightly  said  that  the  whole  of  humanity  is  the  object 
of  the  divine  love,  that  it  is  an  Immanuel  and  son  of 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.         197 

God,  that  its  whole  history  is  a  continual  incarnation 
of  God — as  indeed  it  is  also  said  in  Scripture  that  we 
are  a  divine  offspring,  and  that  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being  in  God.     But  what  lies  potentially  in 
the  human  consciousness  of  God,  is  not  on  that  account 
also  manifestly  revealed  to  it  from  the  beginning.     If 
the  heathen  peoples   generally  attributed   benevolent 
sentiments  to  their  particular  protecting  deities,  yet 
they  were  far  from  knowing  the  essential  nature  of  the 
Deity,  as  such,  to  be  Love;  rather  did  the  course  of 
nature,  with  its  incalculable  vicissitudes  and  constantly 
threatening  dangers,  appear  to  them  to  point  to  a  mal- 
evolent, capricious  and  envious,  jealous  and  malicious 
disposition  in  the  divine  powers  that  rule  in  nature. 
In  Herodotus  the  envy  of  the  Deity  still  plays  a  pro- 
minent part  in  human  history.     It  was  Plato  who  first 
rejected  this  opinion,  and  recognised  unenvious  good- 
ness as  the  essential  nature  of  the  Deity.     But  this 
purer  belief  in  God  did  not  become  popular ;  the  en- 
lightenment of  Epicureanism  put  chance  in  the  place 
of    the    divine    government,   and    held    the    gods    to 
be   indifferent  spectators  of  human   fates,   while   the 
superstitious  dread  of   evil  demons   increased   among 
the  multitude  with  the  pessimistic  mood  of  the  time. 
In   the   prophets   of  Israel   there  are  found  glorious 
expressions  concerning  the  love  of  Jahve  to  His  elect 
people ;  but  beside  this  love  stands  the  hate  of  Jahve 
against  the  enemies  of  Israel.     "Jacob  have  I  loved, 


198  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  Esau  have  I  hated."  In  the  Psalms  the  rehgious 
relationship  is  individualised ;  the  feeling  of  the  pious 
man  rises  often  to  such  an  intimate  familiarity  with 
the  merciful  and  gracious  God,  that  it  comes  home  to 
us  like  a  Christianity  before  Christ.  But  the  increas- 
ing legal  character  of  the  Jewish  religion  brought  along 
with  it  the  consequence  that  the  fundamental  view  of 
God  was  that  of  the  just  judge,  and  that  it  left  no  room 
for  love.  In  addition  to  this  came  the  fact  that  so  long 
as  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  benevolence  was 
sought  pre-eminently  in  external  happiness,  the  ex- 
perience of  the  misfortune  of  the  just  always  awak- 
ened those  doubts  of  the  goodness  of  God  of  which 
the  Book  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes  bear  witness.  The 
idea  of  God  in  Judaism  had  not  yet  advanced  to  a  pure 
spiritual  morality,  and  therefore  could  neither  free 
itself  from  the  limits  of  the  popular  view,  nor  even 
exhibit  itself  in  contrast  to  the  evil  of  the  world  and 
the  sin  of  man  as  the  overcoming  and  redeeming  power. 
It  was  the  Christian  faith  in  God  that  first  rose  to  the 
pure  ethical  idealism  which  knows  God  absolutely  as 
spirit  and  love,  as  the  unconditioned  will  of  the  good 
which  is  neither  bound  to  national  limits  nor  with- 
draws powerlessly  before  the  sin  of  men,  but  which 
rather  reveals  its  victorious  power  most  wonderfully  to 
the  world  of  sinners  itself, — not  as  punishing  justice, 
but  as  redeeming  grace  which  makes  all  new  and  good, 
which   transforms   sinners   into    children  of  God   and 


THE  MORAL   AND  RELIGIOUS   ORDER.         199 

unites  the  divided  humanity  into  a  kingdom,  nay,  into 
a  family  of  God,  a  fellowship  of  brethren  who  are 
animated  by  one  spirit,  the  holy  spirit  of  love. 

As  certain  as  it  is  that  the  highest  revelation  of  God 
is  first  to  be  found  in  this  faith,  it  would  as  certainly 
be  a  great  error  if  we  were  to  separate  this  high  stage 
of  revelation  from  the  other  stages  of  it,  or  even  to 
put  it  in  opposition  to  the  revelation  in  the  moral 
order  of  the  world.  This  error  appeared  in  a  pecul- 
iarly striking  form  among  those  heretics  of  the  second 
century  who  opposed  the  good  God  of  the  Gospel  to 
the  just  but  not  good  God  of  the  old  covenant — heretics 
whom  the  Church  decidedly  repudiated  from  the  be- 
ginning. But  the  same  error  is  committed  very  fre- 
quently in  a  finer  form  even  within  the  Church, 
wherever  divine  grace  is  represented  as  an  arbitrary 
sympathy  of  God  with  some  at  the  cost  of  others,  and 
of  the  righteousness  of  God,  as  if  God  were  to  suppress 
His  righteousness  in  certain  cases  and  make  grace  take 
the  place  of  right  in  some  individuals.  This  is  a  crude 
anthropomorphism  which  has  brought  much  confusion 
into  the  Christian  idea  of  God.  The  divine  love,  even 
as  forgiving  grace,  is  always  one  with  His  holy  right- 
eousness ;  for  it  is  one  and  the  same  Will  of  goodness 
which  in  its  self-communication  to  sinful  men  immov- 
ably asserts  its  holy  purpose,  in  releasing  man  from 
his  sin  and  transforming  him  into  a  new  man,  who 
"  lives  in  the  spirit "  and  is  thereby  freed  from  the 


200  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

guilt  and  damnableness  of  sin.  The  forgiveness  of  sin 
is  everywhere  one  with  the  subdual  of  it.  The  invio- 
lability of  the  moral  order  of  the  world  is  therefore  not 
annulled  even  by  the  Christian  order  of  salvation.  It 
only  ceases  to  be  a  judging  power  against  man,  seeing 
that  it  has  itself  become  the  living  power  of  love  in 
him,  which  voluntarily  subordinates  itself  as  a  sub- 
servient member,  to  the  purpose  of  the  whole.  Grace 
can  therefore  only  come  into  operation  where  the 
moral  conditions  are  present  for  its  reception,  and 
these  moral  conditions  cohere  with  the  universal  state 
of  the  moral  development,  as  it  is  brought  about  in 
the  life  of  society,  under  the  co-operation  of  the  mani- 
fold educative  factors.  The  working  of  grace  is  there- 
fore as  little  an  arbitrary  working  as  is  that  of  Omni- 
potence. As  the  latter  is  regulated  by  the  laws  of  the 
natural  world,  so  is  the  former  by  the  laws  of  the 
moral  world ;  as  the  divine  Omnipotence  reveals  itself, 
not  in  the  annulment  or  interruption  of  the  order  of 
nature,  but  in  the  purposeful  constitution  and  preser- 
vation of  nature  as  a  means  for  the  spiritual  and 
moral  life,  even  so  the  love  of  God  reveals  itself,  not 
in  the  annulment  of  the  moral  order  of  the  world,  but 
in  the  purposeful  government  of  history,  through  which 
it  becomes  the  education  and  training  for  the  highest 
end  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

If  we  now  finally  reflect  upon  the  oneness  of  the 
whole  order  of  the  world,  how  it  exhibits  one  purpos- 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS   ORDER.         201 

ively  guided  development  from  the  lowest  stages  of 
existence  np  to  the  highest  perfection  of  the  spiritual 
life  in  the  fellowship  of  love  and  faith  — in  this  w^e 
cannot  but  perceive  the  revelation  of  the  divine  tvisdom. 
The  question  might  indeed  be  raised  why  that  wisdom 
is  here  spoken  of  for  the  first  time,  seeing  that  Nature 
already  bears  evidence  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Creator 
through  its  purposiveness  and  beauty  ?  Certainly  it  is 
so;  but  on  the  other  hand  we  must  not  forget  that 
final  ends  are  nowhere  to  be  recognised  within  nature, 
but  that  it  presents  an  endless  change  of  becoming  and 
perishing,  of  the  furtherance  of  life  and  the  checking 
and  annihilation  of  life,  so  that  looking  only  at  nature 
we  may  often  rather  receive  the  impression  of  a  pur- 
poseless play  than  of  a  wisdom  pursuing  definite 
designs.  Even  human  life,  viewed  only  from  the 
natural  standpoint,  is  no  exception  to  this  universal 
condition  of  the  life  of  nature.  Nature  has  not  sur- 
rounded the  life  of  man  with  greater  care  than  that 
of  other  living  beings.  He  has  to  undergo  the  same 
struofvle  for  existence  amid  the  thousandfold  dangers 
and  needs  of  his  life ;  and  he  feels  his  evils  even  more 
keenly,  because  more  conscious  than  other  beings.  But 
what  follows  from  these  facts  ?  Surely  only  what  is 
already  otherwise  certain  to  the  pious  consciousness — 
namely,  that  the  final  end  of  the  government  of  the 
world  is  not  to  be  primarily  sought  in  tlie  natural  life, 
but  in  the  spiritual  and  moral  life.     But  even  in  that 


202  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

life  it  is  not  the  changing  fates  of  individuals,  peoples, 
and  kingdoms,  in  which  we  can  yet  find  the  highest 
and  lasting  final  end  of  history.  Even  these  show  them- 
selves, through  the  course  of  thousands  of  years,  again 
and  again  as  mere  ministering  means  and  fore-stages 
for  the  realisation  of  the  one  universal  kingdom  of  God, 
which  is  destined  to  unite  all  men  as  children  of  God 
in  brotherly  love.  Only  in  such  a  universal  fellow- 
ship, in  which  the  individuals  are  bound  together 
through  the  same  devotion  of  all  to  the  common  end  of 
humanity — to  the  Ideal  of  the  good  and  true — can  we 
behold  the  ultimate  final  end  of  history.  Certainly  this 
is  an  Ideal  from  which  the  actuality  appears  to  be 
infinitely  far  removed.  But  is  it  a  mere  abstract  idea 
to  which  nothing  in  the  actual  world  corresponds  ?  I 
think  assuredly  that  with  the  entrance  of  Christianity 
into  the  world,  the  firm  foundation  for  its  realisation 
has  been  laid,  so  that  the  whole  history  of  the  world 
prior  to  Christianity  may  be  regarded  as  the  prepara- 
tion for  the  realisation  of  that  Ideal,  and  the  whole  of 
Christian  history  as  the  development  of  it.  If,  there- 
fore, the  whole  history  of  the  world  shows  itself  as  the 
teleological  process  of  the  advancing  realisation  of  the 
divine  purpose  of  the  world,  we  are  entitled  to  find  in 
the  history  of  the  world  the  revelation  of  the  world- 
governing  wisdom  of  God.  But  do  not  the  fates  of  the 
various  peoples,  tribes,  families,  individuals,  also  belong 
to  the  whole  of  the  world's  history  ?     If,  therefore,  the 


THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  ORDER.         203 

wisdom  of  God  is  manifestly  revealed  in  the  whole, 
shall  we  not  then  also  be  able  to  confide  in  its  wondrous 
guidance,  where  much  remains  dark  and  mysterious  in 
detail  regarding  the  fates  of  peoples  and  men  ?  The 
more  we  look  away  from  what  is  individual  and  small 
to  the  great  and  whole,  the  more  we  free  ourselves 
from  particular  egoistic  purposes  and  seek  first  after 
the  kingdom  of  God :  in  short,  the  wiser  we  ourselves 
become  in  our  thinking  and  acting,  so  much  the  more 
shall  we  admire  the  wisdom  of  God  in  the  order  of  the 
world,  and  say  with  the  Apostle,  "  0  the  depth  of  the 
riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God ! 
How  unsearchable  are  His  judgments,  and  His  ways 
past  finding  out.  .  .  .  For  of  Him,  and  through  Him, 
and  to  Him,  are  all  things :  to  whom  be  glory  for 
ever.      Amen." 


LECTUEE    VII. 

THE   RELIGIOUS   VIEW   OF   MAN, 
/.  HIS  ESSENTIAL  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY. 

"  Lord,  what  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mmdf  ul  of  him  ? 
and  the  son  of  man,  that  Thou  visitest  him  ? "  This 
utterance  of  the  Psalmist  is  a  classical  expression  of  the 
two  aspects  which  we  always  meet  beside  each  other  in 
the  religious  contemplation  of  man — namely,  his  low- 
liness, powerlessness,  and  need  of  help,  in  contrast  to 
the  divine  loftiness ;  and  again,  on  the  other  hand,  his 
highness  and  dignity  in  contrast  to  the  other  creatures, 
his  affinity  with  God  and  his  being  made  in  conformity 
with  the  image  of  God.  The  latter  side  we  find  ex- 
pressed in  most  religions  under  different  legendary 
forms.  To  it  belong,  in  the  first  place,  the  many 
legends  of  the  divine  descent  of  men,  whether  it  be  of 
all  men  or  at  least  the  primeval  ancestors  of  a  par- 
ticular people,  or  even  of  individual  prominent  persons, 
heroes,  kings,  and  wise  men,  of  prehistoric  times.     To 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        205 

it  further  belong  the  legends  of  the  creation  of  men 
by  special  divine  contrivance.  For  example,  accord- 
ing to  the  Biblical  legend,  God,  with  His  own  hands, 
formed  the  body  of  Adam  out  of  earth  and  breathed 
into  him  the  breath  of  life,  so  that  man  thus  appears 
as  a  mixed  product  of  earthly  matter  and  divine  spirit. 
In  the  later  legend  of  the  creation  in  the  Bible,  con- 
tained in  Genesis  i.,  God  created  man  after  His  own 
image  and  likeness  as  the  close  and  crown  of  the  whole 
work  of  creation,  with  the  destination  to  rule  over  the 
earth  and  animals.  By  the  "  Image  of  God "  is  here 
meant  the  whole  superiority  of  man  over  the  sub- 
human creation,  his  higher  bodily  and  spiritual  equip- 
ment, which  makes  him  capable  of  lordship  over  the 
earth. 

The  same  thought  of  the  distinguishing  dignity  of 
man  is  further  expressed  in  the  legends  of  an  initial 
ideal  state,  a  "  Golden  Age  "  of  innocence  and  happiness, 
from  which  men  sank  by  their  own  guilt  into  their 
present  sorrowful  condition.  "Well  known  is  the  legend 
in  Hesiod  of  the  Golden  Age  under  the  lordship  of 
Kronos,  when  the  happy  human  race  lived  free  from 
cares  and  toils,  in  untroubled  youth  and  cheerfulness, 
with  a  superabundance  of  the  gifts  which  the  earth 
furnished  of  herself :  the  race  was  indeed  not  immortal, 
but  it  experienced  death  even  as  a  soft  sleep.  After 
the  dying  out  of  this  happy  race,  then  followed  the 
Ages  which  became  worse  and  worse :   the  Silver  Age, 


206  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  Brazen  Age,  and  the  Iron  Age,  each  always  more 
imperfect  than  the  preceding  one,  both  in  moral  worth 
and  in  natural  wellbeing.  In  the  legend  of  Prome- 
theus, Epinietheus,  and  Pandora,  the  transition  out  of 
the  state  of  nature  into  civilisation  appears  on  the  one 
hand  as  an  achievement  of  the  striving  spirit  of  man, 
which  knows  how  to  procure  for  itself  the  heavenly  gift 
of  fire.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  also  appears  as  an  act 
of  goglless  insolence,  which  the  titanic  man  Prometheus 
must  atone  for  by  torturing  bonds,  till,  becoming  con- 
scious of  the  impotence  of  his  defiance,  he  is  released 
out  of  his  distress  by  the  merciful  help  of  the  divine 
man  Heracles,  and  is  reconciled  with  the  heavenly  ones  ; 
while  human  weakness  and  wantonness — represented 
in  Epimetheus — are  punished  by  the  box  of  Pandora 
out  of  which  proceed  all  the  evils  and  diseases  which 
had  been  as  yet  unknown  to  the  simple  life  of  nature. 
According  to  the  Persian  legend,  likewise,  the  first 
human  pair  was  a  good  creation  of  the  all-wise  Spirit, 
Ahura,  who  had  breathed  into  them  his  own  breath. 
But  soon  the  primeval  men  allowed  themselves  to  be 
seduced  by  the  hostile  spirit  Augromainyu  into  lying 
and  idolatry,  whereby  the  evil  spirits  obtained  power 
over  them  and  the  earth,  and  spoiled  the  good  creation. 
According  to  the  Hebrew  legend,  which  seems  to  have 
close  relations  with  the  Babylonian,  the  first  parents 
found  themselves  at  the  beginning  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden  under  happy  relationships,  at  peace  with  God  and 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        207 

nature,  and  in  childish  innocence  not  ashamed  of  their 
nakedness.  But  when  they  transgressed  the  prohibi- 
tion not  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  then  they 
indeed  really  became  knowing,  for  they  began  to  be 
ashamed  of  their  nakedness  ;  but  they  had  to  atone  for 
this  progress  in  culture  by  the  loss  of  the  happiness  of 
Paradise,  in  place  of  which  came  labour,  pain,  and 
death.  Then,  indeed,  they  made  many  useful  and 
artistic  inventions,  but  with  every  further  step  in  civ- 
ilisation they  always  removed  further  from  God.  Thus, 
according  to  this  narrative  too,  a  happy  state  of  child- 
like innocence  and  naturalness  forms  the  beginning ; 
it  is  lost  by  man's  own  guilt,  and  in  its  place  comes  the 
career  of  culture  with  its  titanic  striving  after  equality 
with  God  and  with  manifold  miseries,  distress,  and 
death.  Wellhausen  has  strikingly  summed  up  the 
common  ground-thought  of  all  these  legends  in  the 
proposition,  "  It  is  the  yearning  -  song  which  goes 
through  all  the  peoples :  having  attained  to  historical 
civilisation,  they  feel  the  worth  of  the  goods  wliicli 
they  have  sacrificed  for  it."  Already  the  later  Jewish 
theology,  and  still  more  the  Christian  theology  since 
Augustine,  interpreted  the  sense  of  the  narrative  of 
Genesis  iii.,  contrary  to  the  original  meaning  of  its 
words,  as  signifying  that  the  primeval  state  was  not 
merely  a  state  of  childish  innocence,  but  a  state  of 
moral  and  religious  perfection,  wisdom,  and  holiness; 
and  that  there  was  brought  in  by  the  Fall,  not  merely 


208  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  external  evils  of  life,  but  a  complete  perversion  of 
human  nature,  with  loss  of  the  divine  image,  and  all 
freedom  for  good,  and  the  dominion  of  evil  lust  and  of 
demons. 

To  the  scientific  view,  it  is  self  -  evident  that  all 
such  legends  of  an  ideal  state  of  humanity  at  the 
beginning  are  devoid  of  claim  to  any  historical  value. 
They  contradict  too  palpably  the  fundamental  law 
of  all  human  history,  that  mankind  must  gradually 
win  all  truth  and  goodness  through  hard  labour  and 
constant  struggle  with  rude  nature.  According  to  all 
that  the  science  of  antiquity  has  enabled  us  to  know 
or  to  conjecture  concerning  the  circumstances  of  the 
oldest  prehistoric  period,  we  must  think  of  the  prim- 
eval men,  the  further  we  go  back,  as  engaged  in 
an  ever  harder  struggle  for  existence,  as  slowly  over- 
coming nature  by  toilsome  labour,  and  as  only  grad- 
ually struggling  out  of  the  rudest  conditions  of  life 
into  an  elementary  civilisation.  The  Golden  Age  of 
the  beginning  is  therefore,  as  certainly  as  the  "mil- 
lennial kingdom  "  of  the  end,  an  ideal  image  in  which 
the  pious  poetry  of  different  peoples  has  deposited 
the  wishes  and  hopes  in  which  they  sought  to  raise 
themselves  above  the  wants  of  their  actual  life.  But  it 
is  just  in  this  that  the  high  significance  of  all  these 
legends  consists.  They  testify  that  it  is  essential  to 
humanity  to  form  Ideals,  and  to  hold  them  up  before 
the  reality  as  its  antitype  and  the  goal  of  its  striving. 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.       209 

In  the  capability  of  and  the  impulse  to  the  for- 
mation of  Ideals  we  may  discern  the  distinguishing 
essential  mark  of  man.  The  beast  follows  the  un- 
changeable instincts  of  his  nature,  which  uniformly 
shape  his  life  in  every  generation.  It  has  no  history, 
no  progress,  because  it  is  not  able  to  form  Ideals 
beyond  its  actual  condition  at  any  time.  Man,  on 
the  contrary,  has  a  history,  a  development  mounting 
upwards,  because  he  is  not  satisfied  with  any  given 
state  as  ultimate  and  definitive;  but  in  his  thinking 
he  sketches  the  image  of  a  better  and  ever  better  state, 
and  this  drives  him  restlessly  on  to  strive  higher  and 
higher  from  one  goal  to  another.  This  capability 
of  forming  Ideals  rests  primarily  upon  the  capa- 
bility of  thinking  as  such  —  i.e.,  of  abstracting  from 
the  individual  given  representations,  and  combining 
them  by  the  free  activity  of  the  synthetic  imagination ; 
and  further,  upon  the  impulse  of  reason  to  bring  the 
manifold  contents  of  consciousness  into  a  sin2[le  form 
corresponding  to  the  unity  of  the  self,  to  order  the 
representations,  feelings,  and  desires  according  to  a 
norm  lying  in  the  thinking  self,  to  shape  the  multiple 
and  confused  into  the  unity  of  a  harmonious  whole. 
This  rational  impulse  towards  the  ordering  of  con- 
sciousness and  life  is  endlessly  active,  because  its  goal 
can  never  be  otherwise  than  relatively  attained — that 
is,  in  an  always  only  partial  and  ever  unstable 
equilibrium   of   the   psychological   powers  in   relation 

VOL.  I.  0 


210  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

with  each  other  and  with  the  external  world.  Hence 
every  Ideal,  every  type  sketched  in  thought  of  an 
order  of  life  that  ought  to  be,  shows  itself  to  be  in- 
sufficient as  soon  as  it  is  reached,  and  with  this  there 
is  immediately  given  the  necessity  for  the  formation 
of  a  new  and  higher  Ideal.  In  this  infinite  striving 
after  something  better  than  what  is,  is  precisely 
exhibited  man's  destination  for  the  unconditionally 
good,  for  his  assimilation  with  the  perfect  Ideal,  or 
God  ;  and  in  this  active  destination  to  God  is  shown 
his  descent  fi^om  God,  his  being  formed  in  the  image 
of  God,  and  his  divine  sonship.  This,  therefore,  al- 
ready dwells  in  man  from  the  beginning,  and  forms 
his  true  nature  as  man ;  but  it  is  not  present  in  him 
from  the  beginning  as  an  actual  state  of  perfection, 
but  only  as  a  potentiality  and  impulse  to  become 
actually,  through  his  own  activity,  that  for  which  he 
bears  in  himself  the  divine  capacity  as  a  rational 
being.  "Be  ye  perfect,  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect."  This  is  the  infinite  task  of  the  human  race, 
which  it  is  not  able  to  fulfil  at  any  time  otherwise 
than  relatively  and  approximately,  and  from  the  ful- 
filment of  which  it  was  furthest  removed  at  the  be- 
ginning of  its  history. 

If  we  ask  now,  In  what  does  the  Ideal  of  human 
perfection  consist  ?  only  a  formal  definition  can  be 
given  of  it.  For  the  real  determination  of  tliat  per- 
fection  becomes   gradually  more   distinct  to  us  only 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        211 

with  the  advancing  development  of  human  nature  in 
history,  and  yet  it  can  never  be  completely  conceived, 
because  the  absolutely  perfect  transcends  all  experi- 
ence. The  Ideal  of  human  perfection  may  perhaps 
be  formally  defined  as  the  complete  and  harmonious 
realisation  of  all  human  capacities  in  a  common  life 
of  humanity,  such  that  in  it  all  the  several  members 
(groups  and  individuals)  are  ends  in  themselves,  and  at 
the  same  time  equally  subservient  members  and  in- 
struments of  the  whole.  That  the  Ideal  is  not  to  be 
thought  of  as  merely  individual  but  as  universal,  follows 
from  this,  that  the  reason  which  demands  it  is  the  same 
universal  endowment  in  all — namely,  the  divine  image 
in  man;  and  that  its  actualisation  in  the  individual 
would  not  be  possible  at  all  without  its  actualisation 
in  the  community,  with  which  the  individual  is  united 
by  his  social  instincts  in  such  solidarity  that  all  dis- 
harmony in  the  formation  of  life  in  the  community 
exerts  a  hindering  influence  also  upon  the  harmonious 
formation  of  the  life  of  the  individual.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Ideal  is  not  to  be  thought  merely  as  a 
social  Ideal,  as,  for  instance,  a  rational  order  of  society, 
in  which  the  individual  persons  would  come  into  con- 
sideration only  as  means  subservient  to  the  whole, 
without  the  Ideal  of  man  becoming  actualised  in  and 
for  his  own  life.  In  such  a  view  it  would  be  forgotten 
that  reason  is  only  active  as  an  impulse  in  the  con- 
sciousness  of   individual  persons,  and  that  its  direct 


212  PHILOSOPHY   OF  RELIGION. 

aim  is  by  subordination  of  the  sensuous  to  the  spir- 
itual impulses,  and  of  the  egoistic  to  the  altruis- 
tic impulses,  to  establish  in  every  personal  life  that 
harmonious  order  which  we  designate  as  morally  good 
disposition  or  virtue.  This  can  of  course  only  happen 
through  individuals  living  together  with  the  community 
to  whose  ends  they  have  subserviently  to  subordinate 
themselves.  But  the  value  of  the  objective  ends  of 
society  is  measured  only  by  their  furthering  the  per- 
sonal life  of  all  their  members  in  the  direction  of 
the  common  Ideal  of  humanity.  These  two  sides  of 
the  absolute  Ideal  of  humanity — namely,  the  individual 
and  universal — we  find  combined  in  the  Christian  idea 
of  the  "  kingdovi  of  God,"  as  the  organised  community 
of  the  children  of  God,  Here  the  individual  free  per- 
sonalities are  filled  and  impelled  by  the  divine  spirit 
of  goodness  and  truth ;  but  even  as  such  they  are  at  the 
same  time  devoting  themselves  in  love  to  the  common 
end  of  the  whole,  to  the  will  of  God,  which  is  over  all 
and  in  all,  and  is  binding  them  all  to  each  other  and 
making  every  one  free  in  himself.  Now,  in  so  far  as 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  the  universal  realisation  of  the 
end  of  humanity,  it  forms  the  highest  common  good  of 
all  men ;  and  participation  in  it,  therefore,  also  in- 
cludes the  full  self-satisfaction  or  happiness  of  every 
one.  Personal  happiness  as  a  feeling  of  tlie  inner  har- 
mony of  life  ought,  indeed,  not  to  be  the  final  end  of 
our   moral   striving  —  for   that  should   only   be   God's 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        213 

kingdom  and  righteousness — but  it  is  withal  the  acces- 
sory and  the  sign  of  faithful  and  successful  labour  for 
God's  purpose,  as  Christ  says  :  "  Seek  ye  first  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  other  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you." 

But  this  again  raises  the  question.  How  can  the 
absolute  Ideal  of  the  kingdom  of  God  be  the  practical 
goal  of  our  acting  ?  How  are  we  to  derive  from  this 
universal  idea  definite  directions  for  our  individual 
conduct  ?  Have  there  not  been  at  all  times  much 
nearer  and  narrower  ideas  and  goals  to  be  striven  after, 
by  which  men  were  determined  in  their  thinking  and 
acting  ?  Undoubtedly ;  but  let  us  not  forget  that  all 
the  limited  ideals  of  human  striving,  in  so  far  as  men 
actually  strove  after  rational  ends,  were  and  are  nothing- 
else  but  stations  upon  the  infinite  way  to  the  actualisa- 
tion  of  the  absolute  Ideal.  This  Ideal  must  necessarily 
resolve  itself  for  the  consciousness  of  men  into  the 
manifold  relative  Ideals  which,  partly  along  with  each 
other  and  partly  after  each  other,  determine  the  living 
and  striving  of  men.  Side  by  side  with  each  other 
we  find  the  various  Ideals  of  the  individual  peoples, 
always  according  to  their  natural  endowment  and 
place  in  the  world.  Again,  in  every  people  the  moral 
collective  will  differentiates  itself  according  to  the  in- 
dividual classes  and  callings,  according  to  families,  and 
last  of  all  even  according  to  individuals.  These  co- 
existing moral  goals  stand  to  each  other  in  a  comple- 


214  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

mentary  relation  like  the  parts  of  an  organism.  But 
changing  Ideals  also  appear  after  one  another  like  the 
changing  phases  in  the  development  of  the  organic  life. 
Every  age  has  its  peculiar  Ideal,  its  special  concep- 
tion of  the  purpose  of  life,  its  estimation  of  the  goods 
of  life,  and  its  particular  labour  at  such  a  definite  task 
of  life  as  is  demanded  by  the  historical  situation  of 
its  time.  The  more  powerfully  a  definite  Ideal  of  life 
rules  the  thinking  and  feeling  of  the  whole  community, 
so  much  the  more  does  it  stamp  its  special  impress  on 
the  morals  and  laws,  on  the  political  and  ecclesiastical 
institutions,  and  even  on  the  art  and  science,  of  the  age. 
It  strives  to  embody  itself  in  the  common  orders  of 
life  of  the  peoples,  and  to  secure  for  itself  lasting 
dominion.  But  this  always  succeeds  only  for  a  limited 
space  of  time.  AVhen  an  Ideal  has  attained  to  dominion, 
and  has  seemingly  founded  its  authority  firmly  for  all 
time  in  fixed  institutions,  the  defects  also  forthwith 
make  themselves  visible  which  are  connected  with  the 
dominion  of  every  limited  Ideal.  Then  a  reaction 
arises  in  the  mood  of  the  peoples ;  critical  reflection 
awakens ;  doubt  of  the  absolute  truth  of  the  previous 
Ideal  of  life  and  of  the  orders  of  life  that  have  sprung 
from  it  takes  possession  first  of  individuals,  and  then 
of  ever  greater  masses  of  men,  and  in  the  conflict 
with  the  old  there  arises  a  new  Ideal,  the  goal  of  the 
striving  of  coming  generations.  This  in  its  turn  again 
passes  through  the  same  circle  of  aspiring,  conquering, 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        215 

and  rulin"  and  of  beino-  combated  and  overcome. 
These  transformations  of  human  Ideals  in  the  succes- 
sion of  ages  form  the  true  kernel  of  history,  its  spiritual 
substance,  which  all  external  events  subserve  as  its 
means  and  expression. 

Each  of  these  changing  Ideals  is  indeed  for  its  time 
the  ruling  authority,  which  rightly  lays  claim  to  the 
devotion  and  labour  of  all ;  for  it  is  the  determinate 
form  in  which  the  absolute  rational  destination  of 
humanity  comes  to  consciousness  on  the  stage  of  its 
development  at  the  time,  and  in  which  it  can  and 
ought  to  actualise  itself.  But  it  is  not  yet  on  that 
account  in  itself  the  absolutely  true  and  good,  whose 
right  would  be  universal  and  eternal;  and  where  it 
gives  itself  out  as  this,  its  relative  right  becomes  un- 
right,  its  conditioned  truth  becomes  untruth,  which  suc- 
cumbs to  the  criticism  of  the  mind  that  sees  farther. 
On  this  rests  the  good  right  of  all  endeavours  at  refor- 
mation. But  in  this  connection  it  is  not  to  be  over- 
looked that  criticism  of  the  relative  Ideal  of  the  time 
and  of  its  embodiment  in  the  existing  orders  of  society 
is  only  justified  in  so  far  as  it  rests  upon  the  know- 
ledge of  a  higher  Ideal,  and  in  so  far  as  it  will  and  can 
serve  to  further  the  formation  of  the  existing  condi- 
tions into  a  better  order.  To  such  a  critical  reform  it 
is  always  only  the  leading  spirits,  the  gifted  prophets 
of  higher  truth,  who  are  called.  They  are  the  instru- 
ments of  Providence   in   the   education   of  humanity 


216  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

unto  the  absolute  Ideal.  For  that  reason  their  acting, 
although  it  puts  itself  in  opposition  to  the  authority 
of  the  existing  conditions,  is  yet  not  arbitrary  and 
immoral,  but  has  the  highest  sanction  of  the  divine 
will,  which  reveals  itself  in  their  conscience  as  a  divine 
calling,  before  the  unconditional  obligation  of  which 
all  other  considerations,  even  those  of  the  common 
duties  of  everyday  life,  give  way.  But  how  can  this 
higher  right,  whose  legitimation  lies  at  first  only  in 
the  breast  of  the  prophet  and  reformer  himself,  be 
proved  to  others  ?  The  public  "  Proof  of  tlie  Spirit 
and  of  Power  "  is  efiected  only  by  history  itself,  which 
makes  the  deeds  of  the  reformers  the  land  -  marks 
of  new  epochs  of  humanity.  But  before  this  can  hap- 
pen— at  the  beginning  of  the  movement  of  reform — 
who  will  blame  the  common  man  if  he  can  see  in  the 
bold  innovators  only  violators  of  the  holy  order  of 
right,  of  moral  practice,  and  of  faith,  and  if  he  fights 
for  conscience'  sake  against  what  is  yet  in  truth  the 
cause  of  God  ? 

What  is  most  profoundly  tragic  in  the  world's  his- 
tory is  that  the  divinely  good  and  true  can  everywhere 
only  introduce  itself  into  reality  by  hard  struggle,  and 
that  its  most  violent  opponents  are  always,  not  the 
unideal  egoists,  but  those  who  cling  to  the  Ideals  of 
the  past  and  are  not  yet  able  to  grasp  those  of  the 
future.  They  have  a  zeal  for  God,  but  not  of  know- 
ledge.     If   we   would    not   become    accomplices   with 


AIAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        217 

them,  we  must  be  on  our  guard  against  the  unideal 
moral  positivism,  which  would  find  the  good  only  in 
conformity  to  the  order  of  society  that  exists  at  the 
time.  We  should  never  forget  that  all  positive  right, 
as  well  as  all  positive  faith,  is  only  relatively  good  and 
true,  an  expression  for  the  time  of  the  stage  of  develop- 
ment reached  by  the  human  mind,  which  is  destined 
still  to  advance  to  higher  goals.  We  shall  then  be 
able  to  find  the  criterion  of  the  moral  value  of  all 
acting  only  in  its  having  for  its  motive  the  realisation 
of  the  absolute  Ideal  of  humanity,  through  furtherance 
of  its  normal  moral  development  and  removal  of  the 
hindrances  to  it.  In  other  words,  the  moral  value  of 
our  acting  consists  in  this,  that  it  is  conscious  and 
willed  co-operation  with  the  divine  purpose  of  history : 
the  education  of  mankind  into  a  kingdom  of  God,  in 
which  righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost 
are  to  reign. 

With  the  human  capacity  for  the  forming  of  Ideals, 
the  capacity  for  the  bad  is  inseparably  connected.  For 
the  beast  there  is  no  badness,  because  its  natural  im- 
pulses and  instincts  are  the  laws  of  its  life.  But  in 
the  case  of  man,  who  has  to  order  his  desires  by  his 
reason,  who  as  a  thinking  being  sets  ends  to  himself 
which  are  above  immediate  desire  and  independent  of 
it,  and  who  derives  from  the  common  ends  common 
rules  of  acting  according  to  which  the  social  life  of 
men  is  regulated,  there  is  given  the  possibility  of  the 


218  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

disagreement  of  the  self-will  of  individuals  with  the 
order  of  the  whole, — in  other  words,  we  have  here  the 
possibility  of  badness.  The  bad,  therefore,  presupposes 
the  idea  of  the  good,  or  of  what  ought  to  be.  To  the 
man  who  is  awakening  to  moral  consciousness  this 
always  presents  itself  empirically  at  first  in  the  form 
of  moral  practice  and  laws.  Yet  the  idea  of  the  good 
is  not  on  that  account  identical  with  the  objective 
moral  practice  of  the  society  of  the  time,  but  has  its 
deeper  ground  in  the  a  priori  demand  of  reason  for  a 
harmonious  ordering  of  the  active  manifestations  of  the 
will,  in  each  and  in  all.  In  the  correlation  of  this  in- 
ternal endowment  and  those  external  facts  of  con- 
science and  of  practice  consists  the  moral  order  of  the 
world,  in  which  we  have  already,  in  a  former  Lecture, 
recognised  the  revelation  of  the  holy,  just  will  of  God. 
Accordingly  the  bad  will  have  to  be  defined  as  the 
violation  of  the  God-willed  moral  order  of  the  world, 
by  the  self-will  of  individuals. 

The  opinion  that  badness  is  mere  negation,  want, 
and  limit,  has  been  often  repeated  from  the  time  of 
Plato,  and  it  has  been  especially  represented  by 
Spinoza ;  but  it  cannot  be  accepted  as  correct.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  physical  badness  is  not  mere  want  of 
power,  for  it  rather  consists  in  the  disharmony  of 
the  powers  and  organs  of  life.  In  like  manner,  bad- 
ness is  not  mere  want  of  spiritual  power,  either  of 
the  will  or  of  the  understanding ;  for  it  is  just  in  the 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        219 

worst  forms  of  badness  that  uncommon  energy  of  will 
and  acuteness  of  understanding  are  often  actually 
found.  In  opposition  to  the  opinion  of  Socrates  that 
badness  rests  upon  ignorance,  Aristotle  already  called 
the  fact  to  mind  that  the  doing  of  the  good  is  not 
always  combined  with  the  knowing  of  it,  seeing  that 
it  depends  also  on  the  passions.  If  badness  consisted 
only  in  the  want  of  knowledge,  then  those  who  are 
theoretically  most  cultivated  must  also  be  morally  the 
best,  which  no  one  will  venture  to  assert.  And  what, 
then,  would  be  the  meaning  of  the  expression  of  the 
apostle  Paul  when  he  says,  "  The  good  that  I  would  I 
do  not :  but  the  evil  which  I  would  not,  that  I  do  "  ? 
This  self  -  contradiction  between  the  actual  ego  and 
the  better  self,  of  the  Ideal  which  is  well  known  and 
recognised  as  the  better  which  ought  to  be — this  self- 
contradiction  between  rational  will  and  self-will — is 
something  quite  different  from  mere  not-knowing  or 
deficient  insight.  Such  a  want  of  insight  is  found  in 
the  infant  child,  yet  no  one  would  judge  its  condition 
to  be  one  of  imputable  guilt.  Not  less  inappropriate 
is  the  frequent  definition  of  badness  as  sensuousness ; 
for  the  faculty  of  sense  in  itself  is  neither  good  nor 
bad,  but,  like  all  that  is  natural,  indifferent.  Any 
sensuous  function  only  becomes  bad  when  it  appears 
in  a  moral  being  in  disagreement  with  the  moral 
order ;  and  therefore  it  is  just  this  violation  of  order 
that   is   bad,  and  not  the  sensuous  faculty  in  itself. 


220  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

What  is  correct  in  tins  view  is  only  this,  that  among 
the  manifestations  of  badness,  allowing  the  unbridled 
sway  of  the  sensuous  impulses  is  one  of  the  most 
frequent,  but  it  is  neither  the  only  nor  even  the  worst 
manifestation  of  badness.  Vices  like  lying  and  hypo- 
crisy, avarice,  the  lust  of  power,  jealousy,  cruelty, 
fanaticism,  do  not  spring  out  of  the  sensuous  nature, 
and  just  as  little  can  they  be  referred  to  weakness  of 
the  spirit,  seeing  that  they  are  often  combined  with 
extraordinary  strength  of  understanding  and  will :  they 
rest  rather  upon  the  dominion  of  the  egoistic,  and 
suppression  of  the  altruistic  impulses  of  our  nature. 
This  form  of  the  bad  is  therefore  worse  than  the  sensu- 
ous, because  it  is  more  spiritual.  The  proper  nature 
and  the  deepest  principle  of  the  bad  unveils  itself 
more  immediately  in  this  spiritual  form  than  in  the 
other  sensuous  forms — namely,  as  that  self-wilfulness 
which  seeks  its  own,  unconcerned  about  the  moral 
order  or  the  ends  and  normal  laws  of  the  world  as 
a  whole. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Church  has  explained  the  origin 
of  badness  from  the  Fall  of  our  first  parents  in  Para- 
dise, and  a  brief  state  of  perfect  sinlessness  was  thought 
to  have  preceded  the  Fall.  How  little  claim  this  ideal 
representation  of  the  state  of  man  at  the  beginning 
has  to  historical  truth  has  been  already  remarked. 
But  the  further  difficulty  now  presents  itself,  as  to 
how,  under  the  assumption  of  a  perfectly  sinless  be- 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        221 

ginning,  we  are  to  conceive  the  possibility  of  the  Fall  ? 
Badness  could  not  arise  out  of  a  pure  will  of  goodness, 
because  no  motives  to  it  would  exist,  and  without 
such  no  imputable  action  is  thinkable.  And  this  has 
been  actually  recognised  by  the  Church  Fathers,  as 
they  mostly  sought  to  explain  the  Fall  of  our  first 
parents  from  motives  of  pride,  or  unbelief,  or  concupis- 
cence. But  they  have  not  considered  that  with  the 
assumption  of  such  motives  they  already  admitted  an 
internal  existence  of  evil  before  the  Fall,  and  thus 
the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  evil  from  the  Fall 
breaks  down.  Nor  is  this  difficulty  diminished  by 
the  interpolation  of  an  external  tempter,  whom  (since 
the  time  of  the  "Wisdom  of  Solomon")  it  has  been 
customary  to  think  of  as  Satan,  embodied  in  the 
serpent.  But  apart  from  the  fact  that  thereby  the 
first  origin  of  the  bad  is  thrust  away  from  mankind 
back  to  the  realm  of  spirits  in  the  world  beyond,  wliere 
it  becomes  utterly  inexplicable,  the  Fall  would  become 
not  a  whit  more  conceivable  by  following  this  circuit- 
ous route  through  the  realm  of  demons.  For  all  exter- 
nal incitements  only  become  temptation  by  their  letting 
loose  an  inner  impulse  to  the  bad,  in  the  stirrings  of 
which  the  real  temptation  first  exists.  As  James  truly 
says,  "  Every  man  is  tempted  when  he  is  drawn  away 
of  his  own  lust,  and  enticed."  Hence,  even  if  we  were 
willing  to  accept  as  a  fact  a  temptation  of  our  first 
parents  by  Satan,  yet  it  must  always  again  be  regarded 


222  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

as  having  found  a  point  of  attachment  in  the  inner 
bad  lust  and  inclination  of  the  first  parents ;  and 
here  we  stand  again  before  the  same  difficulty,  without 
having  obtained  any  help  whatever  from  the  hypothesis 
of  a  tempting  Satan.  The  position  accordingly  will 
remain  thus :  that  a  first  act  of  sin  always  already 
presupposes  some  inner  condition  of  hcing  sinful;  and 
it  therefore  cannot  be  the  first  cause,  but  only  the 
first  manifestation,  of  sin. 

But  just  as  inconceivable  as  the  Fall  itself,  would 
be  also  the  consequences  of  it  as  they  are  described 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Church.  No  analogy  of  expe- 
rience extends  far  enough  to  explain  the  corruption 
of  the  whole  nature  of  the  species  in  consequence  of 
the  single  first  deed  of  our  first  parents.  Habitual 
tendencies  of  character  do  not  proceed  from  individual 
actions,  but  only  out  of  frequent  repetitions  of  them. 
But  that  the  free  first  use  of  freedom  could  have 
abolished  this  freedom  itself,  and  thereby  destroyed 
the  moral  capacity  of  man,  is  wholly  unthinkable. 
Nor  have  the  dogmatic  theologians  of  the  Church 
known  how  to  help  themselves  out  of  the  difficulty 
of  this  dilemma.  Either  the  moral  capacity  and  free- 
dom (the  Divine  Image)  belonged  to  the  specific  nature 
of  man,  and  then  it  could  not  be  lost ;  or  it  was  lost, 
and  then  it  could  not  belong  to  the  specific  nature, 
but  was  a  mere  accident  of  it  (a  domwi  superaddihim, 
as    the    dogmatic    theology    of    the    Catholic    Church 


AIAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        223 

teaches).  The  fvirther  assertion  that  contemporane- 
ously with  the  moral  nature  of  man  his  bodily  nature 
was  also  corrupted  by  the  Fall  and  made  subject  to 
death,  presupposes  that  without  the  Fall  the  human 
body  would  have  been  immortal — an  assumption  which 
stands  in  manifest  contradiction  to  all  the  laws  of 
the  order  of  nature.  Besides,  it  may  be  recalled  that 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  throughout, 
perishableness  belongs  to  the  nature  of  all  "ilesh," 
and  consequently  also  to  the  nature  of  the  fleshly 
body  of  man.  "  Flesh  and  blood,"  says  Paul,  "  cannot 
inherit  the  kingdom  of  God,  nor  can  the  corruptible 
put  on  incorruption ; "  yet  he  says  nowhere  that  this 
condition  did  not  come  in  till  after  the  Fall,  but  he 
ascribes  perishableness  to  the  flesh  generally  as  a 
property  belonging  to  its  essential  nature.  Again,  the 
consequences  of  the  Fall,  which  are  inconceivable  in 
a  natural  way,  have  been  sought  to  be  explained  by 
a  punitive  miracle  of  the  divine  omnipotence.  By 
this  appeal  to  the  supernatural  the  difficulties  spring- 
ing from  natural  experience  would  be  indeed  removed  ; 
but  there  arise  immediately  in  their  place  almost  even 
greater  moral  difficulties,  such  as,  How  are  we  to  bring 
it  into  accordance  with  the  divine  justice,  goodness, 
and  wisdom,  that  He  should  have  punished  the  first 
transgression  of  our  first  parents,  who  were  still  en- 
tirely inexperienced  and  untried,  at  once  with  the 
total  corruption  of  the  bodily  and  spiritual  nature  of 


224  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  species,  and  consequently  should  have  again  an- 
nihilated  His   own  work   of    creation  ?      Nor   can  so 
singular  an   opinion   appeal   for  its   support  to  Holy 
Scripture.      For    when    the    apostle    Paul    says    that 
"  God   hath  concluded  all   in  unbelief,  that  He  may 
have  mercy  upon  all,"  he  cannot  possibly  have  been 
of  opinion  that  the  sin  of  our  first  parents  had  been 
a  traversing  of  the  divine  world-plan,  or  that  it  had 
brought  about  an   alteration  of  the  capacities  origin- 
ally  implanted   by    the   creation.      Eather   has   Paul 
manifestly    thought   of   the   sin   of   man   as   included 
within   the  whole   of   the    divine  government  of   the 
world,  and  of  the  saving  plan  of  redemption — namely, 
as  the  state  of  the  natural  humanity  which  necessarily 
precedes  redemption  and  is  to  be  removed  by  it,  see- 
ing  that   natural    humanity    could   not,   according   to 
the  eternal  order  of  the  world,  be  at  first  spiritual, 
or  already  so  from  the  very  beginning  (1  Cor.  xv.  46). 
Original  perfection  viewed  as  the  state  of  man  at  the 
beginning   is   therefore   as    much   a   dogmatic    fiction 
as   is   the   consequent    complete  corruption.      To   the 
abstract  ideal  representation  of  the  beginning  corre- 
sponds the  equally  abstract  caricature  of  the  corrup- 
tion following  it.     We  shall  rather  have  to  think  of 
the  state  of  our  first  parents  according  to  the  analogy 
of   the  childlike  innocence  of  all  religions  —  that  is, 
as  a  state  in  which  good  and  bad,  the  impulses  of 
the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit,  were  already  existent  and 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        225 

active.  But  the  consequences  of  the  distinction  of  the 
two  were  then  still  wholly  or  almost  wholly  wanting 
— a  state  which  is  as  far  removed  from  moral  perfec- 
tion as  from  moral  depravity,  as  it  stands  just  upon 
the  threshold  of  the  passage  from  morally  indifferent 
naturality  to  conscious  morality. 

Accordingly  we  cannot  explain  the  origin  of  the  bad 
from  the  Fall  of  our  first  parents,  which  cannot  be 
established  as  a  historical  fact.  But  we  can  just  as 
little  give  assent  to  that  indifferentism  according  to 
which  every  man  is  viewed  as  wholly  good  by  nature, 
and  as  having  himself  caused  his  becoming  bad  by  an 
act  of  his  own  groundless  arbitrary  will.  This  view 
starts  from  the  indifferentist  conception  of  freedom, 
which  rests  upon  a  false  abstraction.  The  real  will  is 
never  an  empty  possibility  as  indeterminism  presupposes, 
a  possibility  which  can  determine  itself  equally  well  on 
any  side,  and  which  after  every  action  would  be  again 
equ.ally  empty  and  indetermined.  Out  of  such  indeter- 
minateness  a  morally  imputable  acting  could  never  pro- 
ceed ;  for  this  presupposes  conscious  grounds  of  deter- 
mination, and  there  can  only  be  such  for  a  will  which 
has  its  determinate  content  in  certain  impulses  and 
inclinations.  Freedom  is  self-determination  of  the  will, 
not  in  the  sense  of  a  determination  out  of  groundless 
contingency,  but  self-determination  on  the  ground  of  its 
own  determined  being,  its  temperament  or  character. 
As  the  man  is,  so  he  acts.     The  good  tree  brings  forth 

VOL.  I.  p 


226  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

good  fruit,  and  the  corrupt  tree  can  bring  forth  only 
evil  fruit.  Undoubtedly  all  willing  and  doing  react 
again  upon  the  being  who  wills  and  does,  improving  or 
corrupting  the  condition  of  the  character  in  some  de- 
gree. The  development  of  the  moral  life,  as  of  all  life 
generally,  just  consists  in  this,  that  "  all  is  fruit  and  all 
is  seed,"  that  inner  and  outer  enter  into  constant  inter- 
action with  each  other,  and  that  all  experience  and 
acting  enter  as  co-operating  factors  into  the  formation 
of  character,  out  of  which  again  the  later  acting  pro- 
ceeds as  fruit.  Only  in  this  rests  the  possibility  of  a 
moral  influencing  of  the  will  by  education  and  instruc- 
tion. Were  every  action  a  groundless  arbitrary  act  of 
the  indifferent  will,  it  would  be  useless  to  impress  upon 
man  the  best  principles,  as  they  would  really  give  his 
character  no  determined  direction,  and  consequently 
could  never  become  permanent  grounds  for  the  deter- 
mination of  his  acting.  Then  also  no  reliance  upon 
any  man  would  be  possible ;  for  any  one,  although  he 
passed  hitherto  as  the  best  of  men,  might  the  next 
moment  by  his  groundless  arbitrary  will  decide  for  the 
worst  actions.  But  that  the  position  is  quite  otherwise 
in  reality  we  all  know  from  daily  experience.  The 
more  exactly  we  know  men,  the  more  certainly  are  we 
able  also  to  calculate  beforehand  their  mode  of  acting 
in  the  future.  Whatever  we  may  think  theoretically 
regarding  the  freedom  of  the  will,  in  the  practical  in- 
tercourse with  men  we  always  act  and  judge  on  the 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.         227 

positive  assumption  that  the  individual  actions  of  men 
are  as  certainly  determined  by  their  constant  condition 
of  will  or  sentiment,  as  the  fruits  of  a  tree  are  deter- 
mined by  its  nature.  In  like  manner  we  desire  from 
the  poet  that  he  portray  characters  which  develop 
their  moral  nature  in  a  series  of  consistent  actions ;  and 
the  more  he  succeeds  in  this,  so  that  all  the  individual 
external  manifestations  of  a  person  coalesce  into  the 
whole  of  a  unique  and  specifically  determined  character, 
so  much  the  more  does  such  poetic  invention  make  upon 
us  the  aesthetically  satisfying  impression  of  the  truth  of 
life.  Does  there  not  lie  in  this  an  involuntary  testi- 
mony to  the  fact  that  the  theory  of  the  liberum  aiMt- 
rium  indifferentice  is  an  abstraction  foreign  to  life  and 
untrue  ? 

We  have  seen  that  the  explanation  of  the  bad  from 
the  indifferent  arbitrary  will  of  individuals  is  unten- 
able, on  account  of  the  psychological  incorrectness  of 
this  conception.  But  it  may  be  added  that  this  mode  of 
explanation  also  presupposes  a  superficial  conception  of 
the  bad.  Out  of  the  freedom  of  the  individual  will  there 
could  continually  proceed  only  individual  bad  actions, 
which  through  very  frequent  repetition  might  possibly 
also  have  bad  inclinations  as  their  consequence.  But 
it  is  a  very  old  experience,  and  one  attested  in  manifold 
ways  by  the  sacred  Scriptures  of  almost  all  religions, 
that  evil  inclinations  do  not  first  arise  out  of  free  acting, 
but  already  precede  it ;  nay  more,  that  they  have  their 


228  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

roots  in  the  deepest  ground  of  human  nature.     "  For 
the  imagination  of  man's  heart  is  evil  from  his  youth." 
"  Out  of  the  Iieart  proceed  evil  thoughts."     "  Every  man 
is  tempted  when  he  is  drawn  away  of  his  own  lust,  and 
enticed."     These  passages  in  the  Bible  are  the  expres- 
sion of  the  same  universal  human  experience  which  led 
Kant  to  the  doctrine  of  the  "  radical  badness  "  or  of  the 
perversity  of  the  highest  maxims  of  our  will— an  expe- 
rience which  cannot  possibly  be  explained  by  reference 
to  individual  free  acts  of  will,  seeing  that  it  rather 
precedes  them;    for  earthly  man  when  he  awakes  to 
moral  consciousness  always  finds  in  himself  already  the 
propensity  of  a  self-will  that  is  contrary  to  law.     If, 
however,  this  inclination  were  to  be  explained  as  arising 
out  of  the  freedom  of  the  individual,  this  could  only  be 
done  by  means  of  the  predeterministic  theory,  which 
derives  the  origin  of  the  bad  from  an  intelligible  act  of 
freedom,  presupposed  as  prior  to  the  life  in  time.     Plato 
had  already  in  half- figurative  allusions  taught  a  fall 
of  the  souls  pre-existing  in  the  ideal  world;  and  the 
Christian  Church-father  Origen  had  attached  himself 
to  it,  without,  however,  finding  approval  on  this  point 
among  the  ecclesiastical  theologians.     In  modern  times 
the  philosoiDhers   Kant,  Schelling,  and    Schopenhauer 
have  explained  the  bad  from  an  intelligible  act  of  free- 
dom, and  indeed  from  the  same  act,  which  (according 
to  Schelling  and  Schopenhauer)  also  at  the  same  time 
effectuates  the  temporal  existence  and  condition  of  the 


AIAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        229 

individual  soul.  But  what  are  we  to  think  of  as  meant 
by  such  a  mystical  deed,  an  act  through  which  the 
subject  of  it  first  comes  into  existence  ?  Is  it  not  this, 
that  perhaps  under  this  singular  disguise  there  is  con- 
cealed the  simple  thought  that  the  origin  of  the  bad 
lies  not  so  much  in  a  doi7ig  of  the  individual  freedom  as 
rather  in  the  rise  of  it — that  is  to  say,  in  the  process  of 
development  through  which  the  natural  man  becomes  a 
moral  man,  and  the  merely  potentially  rational  man 
becomes  an  actually  rational  man  ? 

Let  us,  then,  descend  from  the  dangerous  heights  of 
transcendental  speculation  to  the  solid  ground  of  ex- 
perience, and  let  us  try  to  discover  the  ground  of  the 
bad  in  the  psychological  presuppositions  of  the  moral 
will.  There  is  implanted  in  the  nature  of  man  a  multi- 
plicity of  impulses  of  a  lower  and  higher  kind,  which 
are  at  first  all  natural,  neither  good  nor  bad,  but  morally 
indifferent  as  it  were,  the  raw  material  for  the  moral 
formation  of  the  personal  life.  We  distinguish  as  the 
chief  kinds,  the  sensuous  and  the  spiritual,  the  egoistic 
and  the  altruistic  or  social  impulses.  As  the  distinc- 
tive nature  of  man  consists  in  his  spiritual  capacity, 
the  sensuous  impulses  are  destined  to  subordination 
under  the  spiritual  impulses  ;  and  as  the  ends  of  society 
are  of  higher  value  than  those  of  individuals,  the 
egoistic  impulses  are  destined  to  subordination  under 
the  social.  But  the  state  of  man  at  the  beginning  does 
not  correspond  to  this  order,  which  is  demanded  by  the 


230  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

rational  nature  of  man.  Because  man  as  a  natural 
being  enters  into  existence  with  the  mere  capacity  for 
rationality,  the  lower  impulses  preponderate  over  the 
higher  in  him  from  the  beginning.  This  is  natural,  and 
in  itself  is  not  yet  bad,  but  the  germ  of  badness  lies 
undoubtedly  in  this  initial  preponderating  of  the  lower 
impulses.  For  as  soon  as  the  demands  of  reason,  ex- 
hibited at  first  as  commands  of  an  external  authority, 
are  addressed  to  the  child,  forthwith  there  shows  itself 
a  discord  between  this  obligation  and  his  own  will, 
which  seeks  to  assert  itself  in  its  previous  sensible  and 
selfish  direction.  The  real  energy  of  the  natural  im- 
pulses does  not  immediately  give  way  before  the  repre- 
sentations of  the  prohibiting  foreign  will,  whose  higher 
right  at  the  beginning  is  not  yet  recognised,  and  at 
most  is  darkly  felt.  Nay  more,  the  impulses  disturbed 
in  their  naive  satisfaction  by  the  prohibition,  react  at 
first  the  more  strongly  against  the  limitation  enjoined 
upon  them;  and  therefore  the  prohibition,  instead  of 
breaking  the  egoism  of  the  self-will,  rather  incites  it  to 
defiant  resistance  and  passionate  appetency.  Thus  the 
man  awaking  to  moral  consciousness,  finds  himself  from 
the  beginning  in  a  direction  of  will  opposed  to  moral 
obligation ;  he  finds  in  himself  the  propensity  of  a  self- 
willed  resistance  to  the  moral  order,  which  precedes  all 
free  action.  This  is  the  "radical  badness,"  which 
therefore  has  its  ground  simply  in  the  fact,  that  in  the 
development  of  man  out  of  naturality  the  lower  im- 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND   HIS  ACTUALITY.        231 

pulses  have  already  won  a  power  of  self-assertion  and 
resistance  before  the  reason  could  yet  come  to  its  valid 
position  and  authority.  As  this  propensity  of  the  self- 
will  is  grounded  in  the  specific  nature  of  man,  it  may 
be  designated  as  inborn,  hereditary,  or  "  original "  sin- 
fulness. This  universal  propensity  is  further  supple- 
mented by  the  particular  unfavourable  predispositions 
which  consist  in  an  abnormal  strength  or  weakness  of 
one  or  other  inclination,  by  which  the  moral  order  of 
life  is  sensibly  made  more  difficult  from  the  outset. 

These  particular  unfavourable  dispositions  likewise 
rest  upon  hereditariness,  and  are  therefore  to  be 
reckoned  as  belonging  to  the  innate  abnormity  or 
"  original  sin."  And,  finally,  there  are  combined  with 
the  innate  evil  many  other  kinds  of  acquired  evils — 
bad  examples  of  the  surrounding  society,  and  a  false 
order  of  society,  with  conditions  that  make  life  more 
difficult  for  whole  social  classes,  by  which  the  impulse 
of  self-preservation  and  liberty  is  inevitably  incited  to 
help  itself  by  force  or  cunning,  in  the  aggravated 
struggle  for  existence.  All  moral  abnormities  in  the 
social  institutions,  practices,  dogmas,  and  opinions,  all 
the  errors  and  wrong  tendencies  involved  in  the  want 
of  culture  or  of  hyperculture,  work  with  a  morally  de- 
praving influence  upon  the  education  and  development 
of  individuals.  The  innate  abnormity  is  thus  heightened 
in  manifold  ways  by  acquired  errors  due  to  history ;  and 
all  this  together  forms  a  morally  abnormal  habit  of  the 


232  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

will,  which,  taking  precedence  of  all  free  acts,  puts  the 
man  under  the  governing  power  of  the  bad.  This 
tangled  web  of  evil  dispositions,  woven  as  it  is  out  of 
many  threads,  forms  what  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
has  designated  "  original  sin,"  and  what  Kant  has 
called  "  radical  badness."  The  earnest  truth  expressed 
in  these  conceptions,  which  is  entirely  independent  of 
the  mythical  Fall  of  Adam,  ought  least  of  all  to  be 
denied  or  mistaken  by  our  time,  which  everywhere  lays 
such  great  emphasis  upon  the  solidarity  of  individuals 
with  their  social  milieu,  and  upon  their  "hereditary 
burden." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  ecclesiastical  judgment  of  the 
natural  man  suffers  from  exaggeration  and  excess,  which 
is  mainly  to  blame  for  the  fact  that  its  true  kernel  has 
been  so  frequently  rejected.  It  is  an  exaggeration  when 
original  sin  is  considered  as  personally  imputable  guilt ; 
and  it  is  going  too  far  when  it  is  held  to  be  the  whole 
state  of  the  natural  man,  and  yet  the  actually  present 
good,  the  "  original  grace,"  is  overlooked.  That  can 
only  be  imputed  to  man  as  "  guilt "  which  is  grounded 
in  his  own  self-determination ;  and  this  is  just  what 
original  sin  is  not,  seeing  that  it  has  its  ground  beyond 
the  individual  being  and  will,  or  at  least  beyond  his 
conscious  moral  self  -  activity.  In  so  far  as  it  is 
grounded  in  the  universal  generic  nature,  it  could  not 
be  designated  at  all  as  guilt,  but  only  as  disease 
(yitium).     Yet  in  this  pure  naturalness  it  never  occurs 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        233 

in  reality,  but  always  in  some  form  or  other  of  his- 
torical development,  and  consequently  as  a  mixed  pro- 
duct of  nature  and  of  the  activity  of  earlier  genera- 
tions. In  so  far  as  the  latter  participates  in  it,  the 
sinfulness  of  society  at  any  time  is  a  consequence  of 
earlier  actual  sin  and  guilt,  and  consequently  is  itself 
also  actual  sin  and  guilt,  only  not  of  the  individual, 
who  gets  it  as  an  evil  inheritance  from  his  ancestors, 
but  of  the  whole  of  mankind  who  have  co-operated 
in  its  production  for  generations.  Hence  we  may  say 
with  Schleiermacher,  that  original  sin  is  the  common 
deed  and  common  guilt  of  the  human  race.  But  the 
individual  always  participates  in  this  collective  guilt 
in  the  measure  in  which  he  also  takes  part  with  his 
personal  doing  in  the  collective  act  that  is  directed 
to  the  furtherance  of  the  bad.  And  this  happens  up 
to  a  certain  degree  inevitably  in  the  case  of  every 
individual,  who,  having  been  born  into  the  sinful 
society,  grows  up  under  its  influence  to  moral  re- 
sponsibility. Then  the  inherited  badness  will  always 
carry  itself  on  in  his  own  willing  and  doing,  which, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  known  as  what  ought  not  to  be,  is 
to  be  imputed  to  him  as  his  own  actual  sin  and  guilt. 
In  the  conflict  of  the  good  and  evil  principles,  which 
begins  immediately  with  the  first  demands  of  moral 
authority,  it  is  not  possible  that  the  good  can  always 
conquer  from  the  beginning,  as  the  yet  wholly  un- 
developed  reason    stands    powerless   in   opposition    to 


234  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  sensuous  selfish  inclination.  Eeason  can  only 
gradually  become  strong  in  conflict  with  the  irrational 
natural  impulse,  while  the  inborn  good  germs  are 
developed  through  the  educating  influence  of  the  good, 
which  is  present  in  society.  Eor,  as  on  the  side  of 
the  bad  the  individual  does  not  stand  upon  his  own 
footing  alone,  but  carries  part  of  the  burden  of  sin 
and  guilt  which  is  accumulated  in  society  as  the  in- 
heritance from  past  generations,  so  neither  on  the 
side  of  the  good  has  he  been  consigned  merely  to  his 
own  natural  power  and  capacity,  but  he  is  supported 
and  borne  up  by  the  common  spirit  of  the  good, 
which  has  formed  itself  in  the  moral  community  under 
the  divine  education  of  mankind  as  a  historical  in- 
heritance from  the  past,  and  which  in  the  advancing 
conflict  against  the  ungodly  forces  authenticates  itself 
as  the  victorious,  world  -  conquering  power.  It  is 
essential  to  the  religious  point  of  view  to  think  of 
the  conflict  of  the  good  and  evil  principle,  not  as  an 
individual  process  proceeding  exclusively  in  the  in- 
dividual soul  and  depending  on  the  subjective  force 
of  the  free  will,  but  to  regard  it  as  a  universal  world- 
conflict  passing  down  through  history,  a  conflict  which 
God's  spirit  itself  carries  on  against  all  ungodly  work 
and  being,  not  outside  of  humanity  but  in  it  and 
through  it,  and  by  creating  and  preserving  a  com- 
munity of  goodness  and  of  the  good  as  a  bulwark  and 
weapon  against  the  bad.      And  hence  the    Christian 


MAN'S  NATURE  AND  HIS  ACTUALITY.        235 

combines  with  the  humble  consciousness  of  his  own 
weakness  courageous  confidence  in  the  power  of  God, 
which  is  mighty  in  the  weak.  The  utterance  of  the 
Psalmist  concerning  man's  lowliness  and  dignity  from 
which  we  started  to-day,  finds  confirmation  and  deeper 
emphasis  in  the  words  of  the  apostle,  "  Not  that  we  are 
sufficient  of  ourselves  to  think  any  thing  as  of  our- 
selves ;  but  our  sufficiency  is  of  God  "  (2  Cor.  iii.  5). 


LECTUKE   VIII. 

THE   RELIGIOUS   VIEW   OF   MAN. 
//.    REDEMPTION  AND   EDUCATION. 

If  it  is  essential  to  man  to  form  ideals  of  a  perfect  life, 
and  if  he  see  himself  continually  impeded  in  their 
attainment  by  the  resisting  reality  of  things,  he  inevi- 
tably turns  his  hoping  gaze  towards  the  higher  divine 
power,  and  expects  from  that  power  redemption  from 
the  evils  which  oppress  him,  and  help  to  enable  him  to 
attain  to  his  ideals.  The  hope  of  a  redemptive  mani- 
festation of  the  Deity,  and  the  striving  to  bring  it  about, 
are  therefore  found  in  all  religious  as  an  essential  object 
of  their  faith  and  an  essential  motive  of  their  worship. 
Whatever  may  be  the  nature  of  the  hope  of  redemp- 
tion, and  by  whatever  conduct  on  the  human  side  it  is 
to  be  brought  about,  in  every  case  it  depends  on  the 
way  in  which  the  Ideal  is  thought  ;  and  this  again  is 
dependent  on  the  stage  of  the  moral  development  of 
men  which  has  at  any  time  been  reached. 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  237 

It  is  self-evident  that,  on  the  stage  of  nature-religion, 
redemption  does  not  yet  refer  to  the  moral  evil  in  man, 
but  to  the  external  evils  in  nature,  which  are  regarded 
as  punishments  by  the  enraged  Deity  for  the  violation 
of  his  commands.  To  reconcile  the  wrath  of  the  Deity 
by  compensating  performances  or  by  voluntary  expia- 
tions which  discharge  the  penalty — it  is  to  this  that  are 
referred  the  manifold  expiatory  practices,  sacrifices, 
ceremonies  of  purification,  fastings,  mortifications,  and 
mutilations  which  we  find  everywhere  in  the  forms  of 
worship  in  which  the  presuppositions  of  the  nature- 
religions  regarding  the  angry  Deity  still  reign,  or  have 
a  continued  influence.  In  so  far  as  the  wrath  of  the 
Gods  is  to  be  referred  to  failures  of  religious  observ- 
ances— i.e.,  to  the  violation  of  the  private  rights  person- 
ally belonging  to  the  Gods — so  far  do  the  means  of 
expiating  their  wrath  also  move  entirely  in  the  sphere 
of  ceremonial  performances  and  penances,  and  are 
morally  indifferent,  or  even  anti-moral,  as  in  the  case  of 
human  sacrifices.  But  in  so  far  as  the  Gods,  in  their 
capacity  as  representatives  and  protectors  of  the  com- 
monwealth, are  also  made  angry  by  crimes  against  the 
social  order  of  the  community,  the  need  of  expiation 
extends  to  moral  as  well  as  to  ceremonial  trespasses, 
and  it  operates  as  a  powerful  motive  to  the  consolidation 
of  the  civil  order  of  right.  The  mixing  without  distinc- 
tion of  ceremonial  and  moral  precepts  is,  as  is  well 
known,  a  common  mark  of  all  the  oldest  legislations. 


238  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

The  further  development  then  proceeds  in  the  direction 
that  the  moral  is  placed  in  significance  above  the  cere- 
monial by  the  enlightened  wise  men  and  seers,  and  the 
possibility  of  an  undoing  of  moral  crimes  by  mere  cere- 
monial performances  is  denied.  The  gradual  distinc- 
tion of  the  moral  from  the  ceremonial,  the  repression 
and  ultimate  substitution  of  ceremonial  expiation  by 
the  moral  purification  of  the  sense  and  life,  and  conse- 
quently the  transformation  of  the  mystical  conception 
of  redemption  into  the  corresponding  ethical  conception 
of  education,  may  be  designated  as  the  kernel  and  the 
teleological  principle  of  the  development  of  the  history 
of  religion. 

Anticipatory  divinations  of  this  higher  ethical  idea 
of  redemption  are,  however,  already  found  on  the  basis 
of  nature-religion  under  the  covering  of  symbolically 
significant  legends.  For  example,  the  legends  of  the 
sacrificial  deaths  of  Codrus  and  Curtius  in  order  to  pur- 
chase the  victory  of  their  armies,  rest  indeed  upon  very 
superstitious  representations  of  the  wrath  of  the  Deity, 
which  was  only  to  be  reconciled  by  a  voluntary  human 
sacrifice ;  but  they  contain,  nevertheless,  the  true 
thought  that  a  redeeming  power  bringing  salvation  lies 
in  the  heroic  sense  of  one  who  is  prepared  to  sacrifice 
his  own  life  for  the  good  of  his  fellows.  We  may 
also  here  specially  recall  the  profound  myth  of  Hera- 
cles, the  "  hero  and  liberator,"  sprung  from  the  Gods, 
who  proved  his  power  under  conflicts  and  sufferings  in 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  239 

the  service  of  troubled  humanity,  and  who  obtained 
as  the  reward  of  his  victory  elevation  among  the 
Olympians,  He  is  the  opposite  of  Prometheus.  As 
the  latter  is  the  man  at  variance  with  God,  who  by 
titanic  self-will  falls  into  guilt  and  calamity,  so  is 
Heracles  the  man  allied  with  God,  who  remains  obedient 
to  his  divine  mission  under  all  the  trials  of  the  earthly 
life,  and  who  wins  thereby  the  victory,  and  this  not 
for  himself  merely,  but  for  the  bound  Prometheus  he 
also  effectuates  redemption  from  his  torture  and  recon- 
ciliation with  Zeus.  It  is  the  idea  of  the  first  and 
second  Adam  which  we  find  here  preindicated  in  myth- 
ical traits.  How  very  natural  it  was  to  find  in  this 
mythical  God-man  the  symbolical  embodiment  of  the 
moral  idea  of  redemption,  is  proved  by  the  fable  of 
Prodicus,  in  which  Heracles  becomes  the  hero  of  moral 
self-conquest  who  prefers  the  toilsome  way  of  virtue  to 
that  of  base  enjoyment. 

The  thought  illustrated  in  this  fable,  that  salvation 
lies  in  the  self-conquest  of  the  will  that  is  guided  by 
reason,  forms  the  theme  of  the  practical  philosophy  of 
the  Greeks  from  Socrates  onwards.  In  Plato,  however, 
this  thought  obtains  the  ascetic  turn  that  the  soul  of 
man  springs  from  the  supersensible  world,  and  is  not 
truly  at  home  in  the  earthly  body,  but  is  held  in  it  as 
in  banishment,  in  a  prison,  or  in  a  grave.  Hence  man's 
task  is  to  strive  for  redemption  from  this  imprisonment 
by  raising  himself  with  all  his  thinking  and  striving 


240  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

out  of  the  limits  of  the  senses  into  the  eternal  world 
of  thoughts.  The  true  life  of  the  wise  man  is  a  con- 
stant flight  from  the  sphere  of  sense,  and  is  therefore 
a  preparation  for  death,  in  which  this  very  return  of 
the  soul  to  its  true  life,  which  has  already  been  spirit- 
ually striven  after,  finds  its  fulfilment,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  example  of  Socrates.  With  the  Stoics  this 
transcendent  goal  of  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion retreats  into  the  background ;  but  the  practical 
ground-thought  is  still  quite  similar  to  that  of  Plato — 
namely,  that  man  can  only  attain  to  satisfaction  by 
making  himself  free  from  all  passions,  by  ridding  him- 
self of  all  interests  which  bind  him  to  the  external 
world  and  to  society,  and  by  finding  his  immovable 
rest  and  lofty  freedom  in  the  pure  inwardness  of  his 
own  void  self-consciousness.  The  Stoical  ideal,  as  well 
as  the  Platonic,  thus  lies  in  the  ascetic  liberation  of 
the  Ego  from  what  forms  the  subject-matter  of  life  in 
the  real  world.  Finally,  in  the  Neo-Pythagorean  and 
ISTeo-Platonic  philosophy,  this  dualistic  asceticism  has 
become  entirely  transcendental  mysticism,  whose  con- 
tempt of  the  world  formed  the  exact  opposite  to  the 
culture-ideals  of  the  Greeks  of  the  classical  time  with 
its  joyous  sense  of  the  world.  The  world  of  sense, 
formerly  full  of  the  Gods,  appeared  now  to  be  a  thing 
without  essence  and  worth,  an  unreal  and  agonising 
dream.  Ptedemption  from  it  and  union  with  the  world 
beyond — the  world  of  purely  spiritual  and  divine  life 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  241 

—  had  become  the  goal  of  man's  longmg,  which  he 
sought  to  approach  by  all  the  ways  available  to  him, 
— theoretically,  through  the  abstraction  of  thinking  ; 
practically,  through  the  desensualising  of  the  will ;  and 
mystically,  through  ecstasy  of  feeling. 

A  similar  process,  with  a  similar  result,  had,  how- 
ever, already  been  passed  through,  several  centuries 
earlier,  in  India.  By  the  way  of  continued  abstrac- 
tion the  Brahmanic  philosophy  had  come  to  regard  the 
world  of  sense  as  an  essenceless  appearance,  as  the  "de- 
ception of  Maya,"  from  which  the  wise  man  had  to  re- 
lease himself,  partly  through  practical  asceticism,  and 
partly  through  the  deeper  knowledge  of  the  All-unity 
of  Brahma.  The  blessedness  of  the  wise  man  is  de- 
scribed by  the  Vedanta  philosophy  in  terms  quite 
similar  to  those  used  by  the  Stoics :  ISTo  care  about 
the  things  of  the  world  any  longer  troubles  him  who 
recognises  the  world  as  an  illusion  ;  no  pain,  even  of 
his  own  body,  any  longer  affects  him  who  is  able  to 
recognise  his  own  body  as  an  illusion.  The  incorporeal 
and  unchangeable  being,  as  the  wise  man  has  come  to 
know  himself  to  be,  is  no  more  affected  by  pleasure  and 
pain ;  even  the  fruit  of  earlier  works,  of  the  good  as 
well  as  the  bad,  is  done  away  with  for  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  wise  man.  For  him  who  has  recognised  the 
self  as  the  unchangeable,  and  consequently  also  the  non- 
active  being,  the  earlier  works  which  he  has  performed 
under  the  delusion  of  being  an  actor  turn  to  nothing- 
VOL.  I.  Q 


242  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGIOX. 

ness  when  this  illusion  is  taken  away.  But  the  same 
knowledge  which  makes  the  earlier  sins  an  illusion 
annuls  also  the  good  works,  past  and  future. 

"  He  who  in  himself  his  peace  has  found, 
Is  by  no  duty  ever  henceforth  bound." 

With  the  knowledge  of  the  unity  of  the  Self  with  the 
All-One,  all  willing  and  obligation  have  come  to  an 
end.  Thus  does  rest  reign  in  the  soul  of  him  who  is 
redeemed  by  knowledge,  but  it  is  the  rest  of  death,  of 
the  dead  and  emptied  heart,  to  which  the  goods  as  well 
as  the  evils  of  life,  the  true  ends  and  ideals  of  life  as 
well  as  the  false  ones,  have  become  null  and  vain,  and 
life  has  thus  been  robbed  of  all  true  worth.  To  one 
thus  inwardly  dead  the  outer  life  still  rolls  purpose- 
lessly on  for  a  while,  although  without  a  definite  end, 
as  the  potter's  wheel  continues  to  revolve  after  it  has 
once  received  an  impulse.  But  when  at  last  what  re- 
mains of  the  natural  impulse  of  life  has  been  consumed, 
the  spirits  of  life  no  longer  move  forth  into  new  exist- 
ence, and  the  redemption  of  the  wise  man  is  completed 
by  his  entire  dissolution  into  the  All-One.  From  the 
same  mood  of  w^eariness  of  the  world  and  longing  for 
death  also  proceeded  the  doctrine  of  redemption  of  Gau- 
tama Buddha.  It  theoretically  drew  the  consequences 
of  the  Brahmanic  Pantheism,  and  practically  made  the 
way  to  redemption  accessible  to  all,  and  it  raised  the 
ascetic  ideal  of  life  to  a  common  rule  for  an  orsianised 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  243 

fellowship.  The  Buddhistic  doctrine  of  redemption  is 
comprised  in  the  four  "  sacred  truths  "  of  suffering,  of 
the  origin  of  suffering,  of  the  removal  of  suffering,  and 
of  the  way  to  the  removal  of  suffering.  That  all  life  is 
only  suffering,  because  all  that  lives  is  subjected  to  con- 
stant change,  because  all  things  arise  only  in  order  to 
perish  again,  and  perish  in  order  to  return  again  to  a 
new  circle  of  purposeless  and  painful  existence — this 
is  the  fundamental  theme  of  the  Buddhistic  preaching. 
But  the  ground  of  this  endless  suffering  lies  in  the 
thirst  of  the  soul  for  pleasures,  for  the  enjoyment  of 
life,  and  for  power.  Suffering  lasts  as  long  as  the  Ego 
that  wills  cleaves  to  the  world  of  the  becoming,  which 
is  subject  to  the  laws  of  causality  and  of  transitoriness. 
But  what  chains  the  will  to  existence  is  its  not-knowins 
of  the  nothingness  of  all  existence:  when  this  not-know- 
ing ceases,  the  man  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  the  eter- 
nal law  which  condemns  all  willing  to  endless  suffering, 
and  then  his  will  ceases  to  cling  to  the  finite.  With  the 
insight  into  the  aimlessness  and  vainness  of  all  desire 
after  happiness,  the  desire  itself  is  quenched  ;  and  con- 
sequently suffering  is  also  at  an  end,  and  deep  peace 
takes  its  place.  The  final  goal  is  then  reached — namely, 
'•'  Nirvana,"  the  extinguishing  of  the  will  which  strives 
after  life.  "  The  disciple  who  has  got  rid  of  pleasure 
and  desire,  he  who  is  rich  in  wisdom,  has  here  below 
reached  redemption  from  death,  has  attained  rest,  Nir- 
vana, the  eternal  place.     He  who  has  escaped  from  the 


244  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

impassable,  hard,  deceptive  path  of  the  Samsara — i.e., 
of  the  circling  round  of  the  becoming — he  who  has 
crossed  over  and  reached  the  shore,  who  has  sunk  into 
himself  without  wavering  and  doubt,  who  has  delivered 
himself  from  the  earthly  and  attained  to  Nirvana, — 
him  I  call  a  true  Brahman."  So  runs  one  of  the  say- 
ings of  Buddha,  collected  in  the  Dammapada.  The 
ideal  of  the  Buddhistic  redemption  is  therefore  the 
state  of  the  soul  which  is  released  from  joy  and  sorrow, 
fear  and  hope,  which  has  divested  itself  of  all  wishes 
and  purposes,  which  has  found  the  rest  of  full  renun- 
ciation in  the  knowledge  of  the  nothingness  of  the 
world  and  its  own  existence ;  and  this  ideal  is  there- 
fore at  bottom  essentially  the  same  as  the  Stoical 
apathy,  and  as  the  Neo-Platonic  flight  from  the  world 
and  emptying  of  the  consciousness  of  all  definite  con- 
tents until  complete  ecstasy  is  reached,  which  is  in  fact 
an  extinguishing  of  the  conscious  Ego,  at  least  a  tem- 
porary Nirvana. 

This  is  the  negative  redcmjjtion,  which  we  may  regard 
as  an  imperfect  preliminary  stage  in  the  education  of 
humanity  to  the  true  positive  redemption.  That  it  is 
not  without  a  relative  truth  will  be  admitted  by  every 
one  who  knows  the  near  affinity  of  many  Buddhistic 
sayings  regarding  the  vanity  of  earthly  things  with  pas- 
sages in  the  Bible.  If  man  was  to  come  to  his  true  divine 
destination,  he  must  recognise  as  nothingness  and  vanity 
the  sensuous  selfish  purposes  of  the  natural  life — both 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  245 

of  the  narrowest  personal  and  of  the  widest  national 
egoism,  which  in  their  antagonism  to  one  another  con- 
tinually cross  and  annul  each  other.  This  recognition 
was  the  result  of  the  ancient  development  of  culture, 
which  had  proceeded  from  the  selfish  eudamonism  of 
the  individuals  and  of  their  natural  associations ;  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  insufficiency  of  these  impure  and 
limited  ideals  of  the  natural  selfish  eudaemonism  was 
the  necessary  preparation  for  elevation  to  the  true 
all-embracing  ideal  that  could  make  all  happy.  The 
defect,  however,  of  this  ascetic  doctrine  of  redemption 
was,  that  it  stopped  at  negation  without  being  able  to 
find  its  positive  completion.  In  contrast  to  the  naive 
optimism  of  the  natural  eudgemonistic  affirmation  of 
the  world,  the  pessimistic  negation  of  the  world  was 
a  necessary  step  in  advance:  its  error,  however,  was 
that  it  stopped  at  the  negation  of  the  natural  selfish 
purposes,  and  did  not  rise  to  the  true  universal  life- 
purpose  of  humanity  united  in  God,  to  a  positive 
highest  good,  in  which  even  the  finite  goods  are  again 
embraced  as  members  of  the  whole  and  rightly  put 
into  order.  We  also  believe  that  the  world  with  its 
fashion  passes  away,  but  we  know  at  the  same  time 
that  he  who  does  the  will  of  God  abideth  for  ever, 
and  that  our  faith  is  the  victory  which  has  overcome 
the  world.  This  true  positive  redemption,  prepared  in 
the  religion  of  Israel,  has  come  to  fulfilment  in 
Christianity. 


246  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

The  religion  of  Israel,  from  the  time  of  the  prophets, 
was  practical  idealism  ;  its  fundamental  characteristic 
was  the  hope  of  a  future  time  of  salvation,  in  which  the 
ideal  of  a  just  and  happy  people  of  God  was  to  be  real- 
ised. That  this  ideal  was  not  merely  a  subjective  wish, 
but  the  highest  truth,  was  immediately  contained  in 
the  belief  of  the  prophets  in  Jehovah,  the  just  and 
almighty  God  of  Israel,  and  the  disposer  of  the  fates  of 
the  peoples.  But  as  the  reality  never  corresponded  to 
that  ideal,  either  in  respect  of  the  moral  state  of  Israel 
or  in  respect  of  its  circumstances  of  happiness,  there 
thus  followed  from  the  belief  of  the  prophets  in  God 
the  confident  hope  that  God,  by  future  proofs  of  His 
righteousness  and  strength,  would  redeem  His  people 
from  all  the  evils  of  the  present,  inner  and  outer,  moral 
and  natural.  This  prophetic  hope  assumed  many  forms, 
according  to  the  change  of  the  historical  position  of 
Israel ;  but  there  were  always  combined  in  it  these  two 
sides :  (1)  The  expectation  that  God  would  purify  His 
people  inwardly  by  a  fearful  day  of  judgment,  and  that 
He  would  help  on  the  cause  of  the  pious  and  righteous 
to  victory  and  permanence;  (2)  the  expectation  that 
the  people,  thus  purified  and  become  pleasing  to  God, 
would  then  also  be  victorious  over  their  external  ene- 
mies, and  would  rejoice  in  the  eftiorescence  of  a  period 
of  national  power  and  glory  which  should  surpass 
the  fairest  memories  of  the  flourishing  time  of  David. 
The  former  ethical  side  of  the  prophetic  hope  of  salva- 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  247' 

tion  was  the  germ  of  a  rich  future,  while  its  earthly 
national  side  was  the  perishing  husk,  which  was  partly 
stripped  off  and  partly  transformed  by  the  advance  of 
the  history  of  the  Jewish  people.  When  the  national 
hopes  were  baffled  in  the  Exile,  and  under  the  coutinu- 
inw  foreign  aovernment  of  the  centuries  after  the  Exile, 
the  popular  religion  of  the  prophets  became  the  heart- 
religion  of  pious  individuals,  as  it  is  expressed  in  the 
touching  songs  of  the  Psalmists.  The  redemption 
M'hich  the  prophets  had  hoped  for  from  a  future  revela- 
tion of  the  power  and  righteousness  of  Jahve  for  the 
whole  of  the  people,  the  pious  individual  now  hoped  to 
experience  in  his  personal  life.  The  undeceptions  pro- 
duced by  the  bitter  reality  did  indeed  lead  individuals, 
like  the  author  of  Ecclesiastes,  to  grave  doubts ;  but  to 
others  they  became  the  occasion  of  an  ever  deeper 
and  purer  apprehension  of  the  idea  of  Kedemption.  To 
the  pious  man  who  consoled  himself  under  external 
suffering  with  the  fellowship  of  his  God,  this  inner 
happiness  became  such  a  paramount  good  that  he 
"  asked  nothing  of  heaven  and  earth "  (Ps.  Ixxiii.) 
Here  the  hope  of  external  salvation  vanishes  in  the 
certainty  of  the  pious  man  that  in  his  love  of  God  he 
already  inwardly  possesses  freedom  from  the  world.  Yet 
this  mystical  forgetting  of  the  world  in  the  soul  bound 
up  with  God,  as  it  occurs  here  and  there  in  the  Psalms, 
never  became,  in  the  case  of  the  pious  Jews,  the  one- 
sided world-negation  of  the  Indians,  nor  apathetic  indif- 


248  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

ference  to  the  moral  life  of  the  community.  For  the 
God  of  Israel  is  the  positive  will  of  goodness,  who 
reveals  Himself,  not  merely  in  pious  hearts,  but  also 
in  the  guidance  of  the  course  of  the  world,  as  He 
who  will  overcome  wrong  and  establish  right.  The 
pious  Jew,  in  believing  in  this  end  of  the  divine  gov- 
ernment of  the  world,  feels  himself  called  to  co-opera- 
tion in  this  divine  purpose ;  hence  he  can  never  isolate 
himself  in  one-sided  quietistic  inwardness,  but  always 
keeps  his  look  open  towards  the  whole  of  the  people  of 
God ;  "  he  waits  for  the  consolation  of  Israel."  Under 
this  point  of  view  even  the  sufferings  of  the  pious 
obtain  a  new  profound  meaning ;  they  appear  as  the 
means  by  which  God  will  not  merely  prove  and  purify 
the  pious  man  himself,  but  also  work  out  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  sinful  people.  The  patient  suffering  of  the 
"  Servant  of  God  "  is  (according  to  Isaiah,  chap.  Iviii.) 
the  ransom  by  which  the  salvation  of  the  people  is 
purchased,  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  by  which  the  guilt 
of  others  is  overcome  and  repaired.  This  thought,  the 
fruit  of  the  experiences  in  suffering  of  the  pious  in  the 
Exile,  obtained  new  confirmation  under  the  persecutions 
and  conflicts  of  the  time  of  the  Maccabees.  The  blood 
of  the  heroes  of  faith  had  not  flowed  in  vain ;  it  saved 
to  the  Jewish  people  their  faith,  and  had  even  restored 
to  them  for  a  short  time  their  political  independence. 
From  that  time  it  became  a  universal  doctrine  of  the 
Jewish  theology  that  the  innocent  suffering,  and  espe- 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  249 

cially  the  martyr-death,  of  the  just,  has  an  expiating 
and  redeeming  efficacy  for  the  whole  people.  Contem- 
poraneously with  the  view  that  the  suffering  of  the  just 
does  not  stand  in  contradiction  with  the  hope  of  redemp- 
tion, but  is  rather  a  means  of  its  realisation,  this  hope 
itself  rose  above  the  earthly  life  to  transcendent  heights. 
Isaiah  had  already  said  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord, 
"  When  Thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin, 
he  shall  see  his  seed,  he  shall  prolong  his  days,  and  the 
pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall  prosper  in  his  hand "  (liii. 
10).  And  these  words  suggested  the  expectation  that 
the  pious  martyrs  will  have  a  share,  even  personally, 
in  the  victory  of  their  cause,  by  means  of  a  resurrection 
from  the  dead.  Influences  of  the  Persian  religion 
worked  in  the  same  direction,  and  so  it  came  that,  from 
the  age  of  the  Maccabees,  the  belief  in  the  resurrection 
of  the  just  grew  up  among  the  Jewish  people;  and 
thereby  the  idea  of  the  future  time  of  salvation  was 
transported  generally  from  the  soil  of  the  natural  world, 
and  raised  into  the  supernatural.  The  more  the  reality 
always  again  fell  short  of  their  high-strung  expecta- 
tions, the  more  difficult  it  was  to  think  of  the  fulfilment 
of  the  prophetic  ideals  taking  place  in  the  natural  way 
of  historical  development,  so  much  the  more  boldly  did 
the  gaze  of  the  Apocalyptic  seer  raise  itself  to  the 
heavenly  heights.  According  to  the  revelations  of 
Daniel  and  Enoch,  the  kingdom  of  the  saints  and  the 
elect  was  to  descend  to  the  earth  upon  the  clouds  of 


250  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

heaven  and  accompanied  by  heavenly  hosts,  and  as  a 
neiu  ivorlcl  which  was  to  be  brought  in  by  catastrophes 
of  divine  omnipotence  and  to  take  the  place  of  the 
present  world,  which  is  governed  by  demons.  Thus 
also  among  the  Jews  the  place  of  the  once  optimistic 
idealism  of  the  prophets  was  taken  by  a  pessimistic 
despair  of  the  real  world,  and  of  the  possibility  of  a 
redemption  of  it  by  the  natural  way  of  history.  The 
Jewish  dualism  of  the  present  and  of  the  future  world 
corresponded  to  the  Greek  dualism  of  the  sensible  and 
ideal  world  ;  both  were  the  manifestation  of  a  resigned 
turning  away  from  a  reality  that  had  become  spiritless 
and  godless.  But  in  thus  viewing  them,  the  essential 
distinction  is  not  to  be  left  out  of  consideration  that 
the  Greek  vainly  longed  for  a  bridging  over  of  the 
abyss  which  separated  the  sensible  world  from  the 
spiritual  world,  whereas  the  pious  Jew  cherished  the 
hope  of  the  coming  of  the  future  world  through  an 
act  of  divine  omniiDotence,  and  in  this  trusting  hope  he 
in  the  meantime  inwardly  anticipated  the  happiness  of 
the  future  external  redemption.  On  the  one  side  the 
Phariseeac-apocalyptic  hope  of  the  miraculous  coming 
down  of  the  kingdom  of  God  from  heaven  to  earth,  and 
on  the  other  side  the  individualistic  piety  of  the  Psalm- 
ists and  of  "  them  that  are  quiet  in  the  land,"  who, 
being  satisfied  in  their  fellowship  with  God,  ask  nothing 
of  heaven  and  earth, — these  were  the  two  sides  into 
which  the  historical-national  hope  of  redemption  of  the 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  251 

prophets  had  resolved  itself  in  the  last  pre-Christian 
century  of  Judaism. 

These  two  sides  of  the  Jewish  piety  —  the  indi- 
vidualism of  the  heart -religion  of  the  Psalms,  and 
the  socialism  of  the  prophetic-apocalyptic  idea  of  the 
kingdom — were  combined  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  into 
the  unity  of  a  unique  religious  geniality.  The  intimate 
union  with  God  of  the  pious  poets  of  the  Psalms  was 
the  ground-tone  of  His  religious  life ;  to  Him  it  clothed 
itself  in  the  image  of  the  most  natural  and  most  in- 
timate  human  bond  of  fellowship — the  image  of  the 
relationship  of  father  and  child.  But  this  intimate 
union  with  God  did  not  make  Him  indifferent  to  the 
world  or  to  the  needs  of  His  people,  for  He  saw  in 
God  not  merely  His  Father,  but  the  Father  of  all 
men;  and  He  believed  in  the  destination  of  all  men 
to  become  actual  children  of  God  through  trust  in 
God  and  assimilation  to  Him.  Thus  heart-felt  love 
to  God  became  for  Him  the  motive  of  active  and 
patient  love  to  the  brethren ;  it  constrained  Him  to 
offer  the  rest  and  joy  fulness  which  he  possessed  in 
the  consciousness  of  His  sonship  to  God,  to  all  who 
were  weary  and  heavy  laden,  as  a  means  of  consola- 
tion and  salvation.  He  turned  with  preference  to 
those  who  were  physically  and  spiritually  sick,  and 
sought  by  the  exhortation  of  humble  and  trusting 
love  to  awaken  and  animate  in  them  the  glimmering 
spark  of  their  better  selves.     His  love  awakened  love 


252  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

in  return;  His  trust  in  God  awakened  the  courage 
of  faith,  before  which  the  evil  spirits  of  sin  and  in- 
sanity fled  away ;  and  thus  did  the  humble  and  meek 
Teacher  become  the  Physician  of  the  sick,  the  Leader 
of  the  blind  and  strayed,  the  Deliverer  of  the  captives. 
While  He  recognised  in  these  results  proofs  of  the 
victorious  power  of  the  divine  spirit,  the  hope  of  the 
early  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God  became  to  Him 
a  certainty  that  its  existence  had  already  begun.  Al- 
though the  apocalyptic  expectation  of  a  miraculous 
new  order  of  all  things  and  the  inversion  of  all  social 
relationships  might  still  retain  their  hold  even  for 
Jesus,  yet  it  was  only  the  popular  form  in  which  a 
new  thought  of  great  reach  clothed  itself — namely,  the 
thought  that  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God  pro- 
ceeds from  ivithin  outivards,  that  it  has  its  first  realis- 
ation in  the  hearts  of  men  who  feel  and  conduct 
themselves  as  children  of  the  heavenly  Father  and 
as  brethren  towards  each  other,  and  that  through  the 
constant  and  quiet  development  of  these  inwardly 
acting  powers  of  life  even  all  that  is  external  is  grad- 
ually transformed,  and  the  perfect  time  of  salvation, 
if  not  directly  accomplished,  is  at  least  introduced  and 
Ijrepared.  When  Jesus  beheld  in  man  the  growing 
child  of  God,  and  in  the  world  the  growing  kingdom 
of  God,  he  did  away  the  idle  waiting  for  future  re- 
deeming miracles  of  Omnipotence  and  inaugurated  the 
devoted  working  for  the  present  inward  redemption, — 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  253 

that  is,  education  of  men  into  true  children  of  God. 
In  selfless  devotion  to  this  common  task  lay  now  the 
sole  condition  and  surety  of  the  participation  of  every 
one  in  the  common  good  which  God  has  prepared  for 
His  children,  the  kingdom  of  God.  All  the  individual 
commandments  of  the  law  retreat  into  the  background 
as  meaningless  before  the  one  all-embracing  command, 
"  Love  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself  ! "  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His 
righteousness  ! "  With  the  greatness  of  the  ideal  goal 
grows  also  the  demand  upon  willingness  for  sacrifice 
and  the  capability  of  performance  on  the  part  of  man. 
For  the  highest  good,  all  subordinate  goods,  and  even 
one's  own  self,  must  be  sacrificed ;  self-will  and  selfish- 
ness in  every  form  must  be  overcome.  But  what 
makes  this  demand,  which  appears  so  hard,  again 
an  easy  yoke  and  a  light  burden,  is  the  certainty 
that  the  way  of  the  Cross,  that  of  the  mortification 
of  the  natural  selfish  Ego,  is  only  the  way  to  the 
life  of  the  true  Godlike  Ego:  "Whosoever  shall  seek 
to  save  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  whosoever  shall  lose 
his  life  shall  preserve  it."  This  is  the  kernel  of  the 
redeeming  truth  which  Jesus  has  revealed,  not  through 
His  doctrine  merely,  but  also,  and  most  of  all,  through 
His  life  and  death.  Thereby  Jesus  has  become  the 
Eedeemer  {Kar  i^ox>w)  in  that  He  first  understood 
redemption  in  its  true  moral  sense  as  the  freedom 
in  God  which  is  to  be  realised  by  surrender  of  one's 


254  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

own  will,  and  has  presented  it  to  the  eyes  of  man- 
kind typically  in  His  person  and  in  His  life  and 
death.  All  belief  in  redemption  was  henceforth  to  be 
tested  by  this  ideal  model. 

As  it  is  the  fate  of  all  new  ideas  that  they  must 
attach  themselves  to  traditional  notions,  and  under 
their  garb  obtain  acceptance  among  men,  but  at  the 
same  time  must  lose  much  of  their  purity,  so  has  it 
also  fared  with  the  Christian  doctrine  of  redemption 
from  the  beginning.  Already  in  the  theology  of  the 
apostle  Paul  its  dogmatic  envelopment  began  with  re- 
demption being  exclusively  attached  to  the  death  of 
Jesus,  and  this  death  was  set  forth  under  the  point 
of  view  of  a  vicarious  expiation.  This  is  easily  ex- 
plained from  the  personal  relations  of  the  apostle 
Paul.  As  he  had  not  known  Jesus  in  His  lifetime, 
the  teaching  and  life  of  Jesus  could  not  make  a  de- 
cisive impression  upon  him ;  his  whole  interest  was 
therefore  concentrated  from  the  outset  on  the  death 
of  Jesus.  The  death  of  the  Cross  had  been  to  him 
at  first  the  offence  which  prevented  him  from  be- 
lieving in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  ;  but  after  the 
vision  at  Damascus  this  very  death  became  to  him 
the  chief  thing  in  Christ,  the  end  of  His  divine  mis- 
sion, and  the  means  of  His  work  of  redemption.  The 
question,  in  what  sense  the  death  on  the  Cross  could 
be  the  means  of  the  Messianic  redemption,  found  its 
answer  to  him  simply  from  the  presuppositions  of  the 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  255 

Phariseecac  theology,  which  beheld  in  the  innocent  suf- 
fering, and  especially  in  the  martyr-death,  of  the  right- 
eous, an  expiatory  means  compensating  for  the  sins  of 
the  whole  people.  What  could  be  more  natural  than 
that  Paul,  from  the  moment  when  he  recognised  Jesus 
as  the  Messiah,  should  contemplate  the  death  on  the 
Cross  from  the  same  point  of  view  as  an  expiatory 
means  of  salvation  for  the  redemption  of  the  sinful 
world  ?  But  it  was  not  merely  to  the  Jewish  people 
that  the  expiatory  effect  of  the  death  of  Christ  would 
extend,  seeing  that  Jesus,  according  to  the  conviction 
of  Paul,  was  not  merely  the  Jewish  ]\Iessiah,  but  the 
heavenly  man,  the  ideal  of  men  coming  down  from 
heaven,  the  second  Adam.  Hence  the  martyr-death 
of  Jesus  which  had  been  suffered  in  obedience  to  the 
will  of  the  Father,  was  accepted  by  Him  as  an  ex- 
piation performed  by  the  representative  of  humanity 
for  all,  by  which  the  world  had  been  reconciled  with 
God;  and  His  resurrection  was  regarded  as  the  be- 
ginning of  the  new  life  of  a  regenerated  humanity. 
In  one  respect  this  view  may  be  made  to  appear  as 
if  redemption  had  again  become  a  supernatural  miracle, 
a  mysterious  expiatory  sacrifice,  which  God  Himself 
has  carried  into  effect  in  the  bloody  death  of  His 
Son  for  the  world,  in  order  thereby  to  surpass  and 
to  supersede  all  previous  sacrifices  ;  and  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  this  more  or  less  magical  notion  of 
redemption  has  played  a  great  part  in  the  Christian 


256  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

world.  But  let  us  not  overlook  the  fact  that  under 
this  dogmatic  shell  there  is  still  concealed  the  same 
ethical  kernel  which  we  have  recognised  as  the  thought 
of  redemption  in  the  mind  of  Jesus.  For  what  gives 
the  death  of  Jesus  its  expiatory  power  is  also,  accord- 
ins  to  Paul,  the  mind  of  the  ideal  Man  and  Son  of 
God,  who  sought  not  His  own,  who  did  not  wish  to 
seize  His  Messianic  Lordship  by  violence,  but  merited 
it  by  means  of  His  self-humiliation  and  obedience  to 
death,  even  to  the  death  on  the  Cross  (Phil.  ii.  7,  8). 
And  the  saving  power  of  the  death  of  Christ  only 
comes  into  operation  in  those  who  enter  in  faith  into 
the  fellowship  of  His  spiritual  life, — who  spiritually 
die  and  rise  again  with  Him.  Ptcgarded  from  this 
point  of  view,  Christ's  death  and  resurrection  have 
therefore  the  significance  of  a  dramatic  symbolising 
of  the  cardinal  ethical  truth,  that  it  is  the  self-sacrifice 
of  obedience  and  love  by  which  man  is  released  from 
sin  and  guilt,  and  becomes  participative  of  the  peace 
and  freedom  of  a  child  of  God.  In  this,  therefore, 
Paul  and  Jesus  entirely  agree ;  the  distinction  between 
them  is  only  this,  that  Jesus  taught  the  redeeming 
truth  immediately  by  His  words  and  life,  whereas 
Paul  has  enveloped  it  in  the  dogmatic  notion  of  the 
sacrificial  death  of  Christ  suffered  once  for  all  for  ils, 
which  must  be  carried  on  in  advancing  ethical  self- 
sacrifice  in  us. 

In  the  Church  the    dogmatic-suprauaturalistic   and 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  257 

the  ethical  doctrine  of  redemption  always  held  their 
place  in  its  history  side  by  side  with  each  other, 
although  the  former  stood  more  prominently  in  the 
foreground,  not  merely  in  the  popular  view,  but  also 
among  the  theologians.  Its  most  widely  spread  form, 
which  ruled  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  was  the 
mythical  representation  of  a  conflict  or  juridical  trans- 
action between  Christ  and  the  devil — a  fruitful  theme 
for  the  medieval  fantasy,  and  exhibited  in  manifold 
variations  in  art  and  legend.  Yet  this  myth  could 
not  satisfy  the  more  earnest-thinking ;  and  hence  the 
scholastic  Anselm  set  himself  the  task,  how  to  under- 
stand redemption,  without  reference  to  the  devil,  as  the 
satisfaction  of  the  God-Man  required  by  the  violated 
honour  of  God.  His  theory  rested  throughout  on  the 
presupposition  of  the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  morals 
of  his  time :  the  violated  honour  of  God  demands 
punishment  or  satisfaction.  The  punishment  can  be 
commuted  by  a  performance  of  value,  which,  in  the  case 
of  the  debtor  who  is  unable  to  pay,  can  be  discharged 
by  a  kinsman.  The  death  of  the  God-Man  was  regarded 
as  an  opus  su^percrogativum  of  infinite  meritorious  value. 
This  merit  demands  a  corresponding  reward,  which  is 
credited  to  the  account  of  the  human  kinsmen  of  the 
God-Man,  so  as  to  cover  their  insufficiency  in  moral 
performances.  The  work  of  Christ,  as  Anselm  con- 
strued it,  was  in  fact  nothing  else  than  the  prototype  of 
the  meritorious  performances  and  satisfactions  of  the 

VOL.  I.  K 


258  PHILOSOPHY   OF  RELIGION. 

ecclesiastical  saints,  and  was  therefore  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  medieval  Church  thought  out  quite  logi- 
cally. All  the  more  remarkable  is  it  that  the  Churches 
of  the  Eeformation  could  be  satisfied  with  this  theory, 
notwithstanding  that  it  stood  in  complete  contradic- 
tion to  their  deeper  moral  consciousness.  If,  according 
to  Protestant  principles  generally,  there  are  no  super- 
erogatory meritorious  works,  then  one  would  suppose 
that  such  cannot  be  accepted  even  in  the  case  of  Jesus, 
And  if  it  is  only  the  personal  state  of  mind  of  the 
individual  that  decides  regarding  his  salvation  (which 
is  the  kernel  of  the  doctrine  of  justifying  faith),  then 
one  would  suppose  that  there  cannot  be  any  vicarious 
performances  of  one  for  others  at  all,  nor  consequently 
any  such  even  in  the  relationship  of  Christ  to  us. 

These  objections  to  the  ecclesiastical  dogma  of  re- 
demption were  already  raised  in  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation by  men  like  Schwenkfeld,  Weigel,  and  Frank. 
"  Our  redemption,"  said  Weigel,  "  rests  not  upon  what 
the  earthly  Christ  has  done  for  us,  as  if  we  could  help 
ourselves  without  repentance  with  His  imputed  right- 
eousness. The  life  of  Christ  in  thee  must  do  it: 
Christ's  death  is  imputed  to  no  one ;  let  him  then  have 
the  death  of  Christ  in  himself,  in  the  crucifixion  of  his 
old  man."  According  to  Frank,  the  historical  Christ  is 
given  to  us  for  an  example  and  a  sign  of  grace,  that  we 
may  lay  hold  of  God  in  Him.  In  Christ  that  becomes 
revealed  which  was  formerly  existing  unconsciously  in 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  259 

the  hearts  of  the  pious.  But  the  history  of  Christ  must 
consummate  itself  in  all  His  members ;  the  Word  must 
also  become  flesh  in  us,  must  suffer  and  die  and  rise 
again  in  us.  The  intention  of  these  really  evangelically 
thinking  men,  to  put  an  ethical  and  internal  redemp- 
tion in  place  of  the  dogmatic  and  external  redemption, 
could  not  at  first  be  carried  through  in  opposition  to 
the  new  dogmatism  of  the  Protestant  theology,  but  we 
may  see  in  them  the  precursors  of  the  idealistic 
philosophy  of  religion,  which  since  Kant  has  exercised 
deep  influence  even  upon  the  theological  doctrine  of 
redemption.  According  to  Kant,  belief  in  a  mere 
historical  proposition  is  dead  in  itself,  and  is  of  no  avail 
for  salvation :  the  proper  object  of  the  belief  in  Christ 
is  the  ideal  Son  of  God — i.e.,  the  ideal  of  the  humanity 
that  is  well-pleasing  to  God.  This  idea  has  the  basis 
of  its  truth  and  binding  power  in  the  practical  reason, 
and  is  independent  of  all  historical  traditions  ;  but  it  is 
brought  to  efficient  perception  through  the  example  of 
Jesus,  whom  we  therefore  may  regard  as  if  the  ideal  of 
the  good  had  appeared  bodily  in  Him,  without  our 
having  nevertheless  on  that  account  to  see  in  Him 
anything  else  than  a  true  man :  nay  more,  by  presup- 
posing His  mystical  Deity,  the  typicalness  of  His  moral 
example  would  rather  be  destroyed.  Even  the  dog- 
matic theory  that  the  guilt  of  men  is  vicariously  ex- 
piated by  Christ's  death  cannot,  according  to  Kant's 
conviction,  be    correct   in   the   proper   sense,  because 


260  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

guilt,  as  the  most  personal  of  all  things,  is  not  trans- 
ferable.    We  are  thus  led  to  see  in  this  theory  the 
symbolical  presentment  of  the  truth  that  the  new  man 
in  us  suffers  as  it  were  vicariously  for  the  old  man ;  for 
he  takes  upon  himself  the  daily  pain  of  self-subjuga- 
tion, and  bears  guiltlessly  in  patience  the  manifold  evils 
which  the  old  man  could  not  but  necessarily  impute  to 
himself  as  punishment.     Therefore,  as  Christ  is   the 
exemplification  of  the  moral  idea  of  man,  so  His  death 
is  the  symbol  of  that  moral  process  of  painful  self- 
subjugation  in  obedience  and  patience,  in  which  the 
true  inner  redemption  of  man  consists.     In  like  man- 
ner Fichte  said,  the  only  proper  means  of  salvation  is 
the  death  of  selfhood,  death  with  Jesus,  regeneration. 
This  is  the  way  we  must  go :  the  history  of  how  it  has 
been  discovered  and  made  plain  is  indeed   otherwise 
good,  but  it  gives  no  help  to  going.     Christianity  is  not 
reached  until  that  way  of  blessedness  is  recognised  as 
the  sole  and  whole  way,  and  what  is  historical  is  to  be 
given  over  to  the  understanding.    If  one  is  really  united 
with  God,  it  is  quite  indifferent  by  what  way  he  has 
come  to  it ;  and  it  would  be  a  very  useless  occupation 
to  be  always  merely  repeating  to  one's  self  the  remem- 
brance of  the  way,  instead  of  living  in  the  thing  itself. 
In  this  philosophical  doctrine  of  redemption   there 
lies  a  significant  truth,  along  with  a  sensible  defect. 
The  truth  is  this,  that  redemption  is  not  a  miraculous 
process  external  to  us,  which  was  accomplished  long 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  261 

ago  and  once  for  all  by  the  sacrificial  death  of  a  God 
in  our  favour,  but  that  it  is  a  moral  event  happening 
within  the  soul  which  always  repeats  itself,  the  self- 
sacrifice  of  the  will  to  God  in  obedience,  love,  and 
patience.  This  is  just  what  we  have  learned  to  know 
as  the  sense  of  Jesus'  doctrine  of  redemption ;  and 
this  is  also  just  what  was  the  kernel  of  the  Eeformation 
doctrine  of  justifying  faith,  whicli  indeed  is  nothing 
but  self-surrender  to  the  holy  love  of  God.  But  the 
defect  in  the  Kant-Fichtean  doctrine  of  redemption 
consisted  in  this,  that  it  limited  this  ethical  process  of 
transformation  to  the  individual,  and  endeavoured  to 
explain  it  from  his  subjective  reason  and  freedom 
alone.  In  this  view  the  decisive  question  remained 
unsolved — namely,  how  the  individual  was  of  himself 
to  become  able  to  release  himself  from  his  moral 
imprisonment  and  powerlessness,  and  to  become  a  new 
morally  free  man.  For  by  appealing  to  what  ought 
to  be,  to  the  law  of  the  good  lying  in  the  reason,  the 
possibility  of  its  realisation  was  not  at  all  explained, 
seeing  that  the  law  by  itself  alone  is  able  indeed  to 
weigh  us  down  and  to  condemn  us,  but  not  to  lift  us 
up  and  liberate  us.  Limited  to  the  individual,  the 
victory  of  the  good  principle  over  the  bad  always 
remains  problematical,  a  thing  of  happy  accident 
without  real  guarantee.  Only  when  the  moral  indi- 
vidual knows  himself  to  be  the  member  of  a  com- 
munity   in    which    the    good    principle    has    actually 


262  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

become  the   ruling   common   spirit,  and   shows   itself 
always  efficient  as  the  victorious  power  over  the  bad 
in   the   collective   historical   life,  —  only   then   is   the 
possibility   likewise    given    that    the    individual    may 
himself  also  become  good  through  the  educating  power 
of   the   good   Spirit   which    lives    in    the    community. 
This   is   just    the    Christian    doctrine    of    redemption. 
According  to  it,  the  moral  liberation  and  regeneration 
of  the  individual  is  not  the  effect  of  his  own  natural 
power,  but  the  effect  of  the  divine  Spirit,  who,  from 
the  beginning  of  human  history,  put  forth  His  activity 
as  the  power  educating  to   the  good,  and    especially 
has  created  for  Himself  in  the  Christian  community 
a  permanent  organ  for  the  education  of  the  peoples 
and  of  individuals.     It   was  the  moral  individualism 
of  Kant  which   prevented   him    from   finding   in   the 
historically   realised    common    spirit  of   the  good   the 
real  force  available  for  the  individual  becoming  good. 
The  post-Kantian  philosophy   overcame   this  defect 
by  its  turning  from  subjective  to  objective  or  historic- 
social  idealism.     And  from  this  higher  point  of  view 
Schleiermacher   has  pre-eminently  understood  how  to 
combine  the  internality  of  Kant's  ethical  doctrine  of 
redemption  with  the  historicity  of  the  principle  of  re- 
demption which  proceeded  from  Jesus  Christ  and  is 
active    in    the    Christian    community.      According   to 
Schleiermacher,  redemption  is  not  a  transcendent  mir- 
aculous process,  but  a  religious  moral  process  of  con- 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  263 

sciousness,  which  lies  in  the  sphere  of  our  experience 
and  corresponds  to  the  laws  of  our  nature.  That  the 
consciousness  of  God,  which  belongs,  along  with  the 
sensibility,  to  the  generic  nature  of  man  as  a  rational 
being,  must  become  free  from  its  initial  suppression 
and  attain  dominion  over  the  lower  side  of  man — 
this,  according  to  Schleiermacher,  is  grounded  in  the 
unity  of  the  divine  decree  of  creation  and  redemption, 
or  of  the  order  of  the  world ;  and  it  therefore  followed 
as  a  consequence  with  inner  necessity  from  the  de- 
velopment of  the  rational  capacity  of  man — as  it  is 
also,  according  to  Kant,  a  demand  grounded  in  our 
reason — that  the  good  principle  shall  become  lord  over 
the  bad  principle.  But  whereas  Kant  derived  this 
victory  from  the  freedom  of  the  subject,  and  con- 
sequently made  it  inexplicable,  or  at  least  wholly 
problematical,  Schleiermacher,  on  the  other  hand, 
rightly  recognised  that  the  experience  of  the  individual, 
in  respect  of  the  bad  as  well  as  in  respect  of  the  good, 
stands  in  causal  connection  with  the  joint  experience 
of  the  community  of  which  he  is  a  member.  The 
passing  from  the  dominion  of  sin  to  the  dominion  of 
the  consciousness  of  God,  in  which  redemption  just 
consists,  cannot  therefore  have  its  sufficient  ground  in 
the  individual,  but  can  only  be  a  consequence  and 
imitative  repetition  of  the  fundamental  and  typical 
transition  which  has  been  effected  in  the  common 
consciousness  of  humanity  through  the  historical  life- 


264  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

work  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  perfection  in  principle  of 
the  consciousness  of  God  in  Jesus  was  the  redeeming 
power  which  appeared  in  Him  as  personal  life ;  and 
which,  proceeding  from  Him,  is  present  and  active  as 
the  holy  common  spirit  in  Christendom.  If  it  is  true 
that  the  individual  life  is  always  the  abbreviated  re- 
petition of  the  generic  life,  and  that  the  actualisation 
of  the  human  capacities  in  the  individual  is  only 
effected  everywhere  on  the  ground  of  their  actuality 
in  society,  then  it  was  certainly  a  happy  thought  of 
Schleiermacher  to  expand  the  different  states  of  the 
religious  self-consciousness  (unfreedom  and  liberation 
of  the  higher  self)  into  phases  of  the  development  of 
all  religious  humanity.  Thereby  he  broke  through 
the  narrow  individualistic  and  non-historical  horizon 
of  the  Aufkldrung,  and  reconciled  the  inner  self- 
certainty  of  the  personal  spirit  with  the  historical 
common  spirit  of  Christendom. 

Upon  the  standpoint  of  this  universal-historical  doc- 
trine of  redemption  (as  we  may  call  it  by  way  of  dis- 
tinction from  Kant's  individualism),  the  good  is  not  a 
mere  ought-to-be,  an  ideal  without  reality,  the  realising 
of  which  was  expected  exclusively  from  the  subjective 
will,  which,  however,  could  never  become  capable  of 
its  task.  But  the  good  is  the  universal-rational  will 
or  divine  Logos  which  realises  itself  in  the  course  of 
the  history  of  humanity,  the  revelation  of  which  has 
indeed  attained  its  highest  point  in  Christ,  but  is  by 


REDEMPTION  AND  EDUCATION.  265 

no  means  limited  to  Him,  rather  going  back  to  the 
beginning  of  our  race.  The  rational  capacity  innate 
in  us,  that  image  of  God  in  man,  already  rests  upon 
our  participating  in  the  divine  Logos,  which  John  for 
that  very  reason  calls  quite  generally  "the  light  of 
men,"  the  light  "which  lighteth  every  man."  And 
thus  every  step  in  the  development  of  this  divine  germ 
of  humanity,  every  thought  which  rises  to  the  light  of 
truth,  every  good  deed  which  furthers  and  preserves 
the  moral  order,  is  likewise  a  revelation  of  the  divine 
spirit  which  redeems  us  from  crude  nature  and  educates 
us  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 

Undoubtedly  the  central  revelation  of  this  spirit  has 
been  the  religious  life  of  humanity  at  all  times  ;  and  in 
this  sphere  Jesus  Christ  is  the  central  form  towering 
above  all  else,  and  His  life-work  is  the  decisive  turn- 
ing-point, the  regeneration  of  humanity,  the  redemption 
(kut  i^oxvv)-  But  this  does  not  exclude  the  fact  that 
we  may  also  recognise  in  all  the  other  benefactors  of 
humanity  who  have  accomplished  what  is  great  and 
fruitful  in  religion  and  morality,  in  art  and  science,  in 
discoveries  and  inventions,  redeeming  heroes  and  in- 
struments of  the  divine  education  of  humanity.  The 
collected  fruit  of  all  these  deeds  and  sufferings,  con- 
flicts and  sacrifices,  which  contributed  to  further  the 
spiritual  development  of  our  race,  forms  the  true 
"treasure  of  grace"  which  is  transmitted  as  a  most 
precious   inheritance   from    generation   to   generation. 


266  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Every  individual  who  is  born  into  the  world  of  Christian 
civilisation  and  reared  in  it,  enters  immediately  into 
the  enjoyment  of  this  inestimable  inheritance,  which 
is  laid  into  his  cradle  as  an  unmerited  good,  and,  we 
may  say,  as  a  gracious  gift  of  the  love  and  wisdom 
that  govern  the  world.  Before  the  waking  conscious- 
ness of  the  spirit  of  the  child  is  able  to  grasp  the 
thought  of  the  good  as  law,  duty,  task,  and  ideal,  it  has 
already  long  got  to  feel  the  good  as  the  present  good 
of  civilised  life,  and  as  the  educating  power  of  truth 
and  love.  There  also  springs  out  of  this  precious  gift  of 
"  the  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation  "  (Titus  ii.  11) 
a  correspondingly  high  task  for  every  individual.  But 
the  impossible  is  not  demanded,  namely,  that  every  one 
should  proceed  to  create  the  good  out  of  his  own  weak 
powers ;  he  has  only  to  give  himself  up  willingly  to 
the  existing  spirit  of  the  good,  to  appropriate  it  to 
himself,  to  live  into  it,  and  to  let  himself  be  trained 
by  it  to  true  freedom,  in  order  then  to  work  co-oper- 
atingly  with  strengthened  power  for  the  furtherance 
of  the  common  good.  "  What  thou  hast  inherited 
from  thy  fathers,  acquire  it  in  order  to  possess  it ! " 
This  advancing  work  of  appropriating  and  communi- 
cating spiritual  goods,  of  letting  one's  self  be  educated 
and  educating  others  for  the  good,  in  this  dedication 
of  the  whole  self  to  the  furtherance  of  the  universal 
good,  of  the  kingdom  of  God, — in  this  work  consists 
the  ethical  redemjption  of  all. 


LECTUEE   IX. 

THE  EELIGIOUS   VIEW    OF   THE   WOKLD. 
/.    IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM. 

The  thought  that  the  world  has  its  sole  ground  in  God 
is  regarded  in  the  Monotheistic  religions  as  an  almost 
self-evident  cardinal  proposition.  But  the  history  of 
religion  teaches  that  this  thought  only  grew  very 
gradually  to  maturity  in  the  consciousness  of  men. 
The  devotees  of  Nature-religion  did  not  yet  know  it. 
As  its  Gods  are  themselves  Nature-beings,  they  cannot 
be  the  ultimate  ground  of  Nature,  but  they  arise  at  the 
same  time  with  it.  Where  men  reflected  in  the  sphere 
of  the  Nature-religions  regarding  the  origin  of  the  uni- 
verse, they  thought  that  the  visible  world,  together  with 
the  Gods  and  spirits,  had  arisen  of  themselves  out  of 
original  germs  or  material  elements ;  their  Cosmogony 
was  one  with  their  Theogony.  The  notion  was  widely 
spread  of  a  world -egg  which,  having  burst,  became 
heaven  and  earth,  and  out  of  whose  contents  even  the 


268  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Gods  had  arisen  along  with  other  beings.  Or  they 
thought  of  Chaos  as  being  the  first,  that  formless  mass 
in  which  all  the  germs  of  life,  and  of  Gods  and  men, 
are  still  together ;  and  which  then  by  gradual  separa- 
tion and  combination  of  the  individual  forces,  unfolded 
itself  into  the  world  of  the  Gods  and  of  earthly  beings. 
According  to  Hesiod's  cosmogony,  for  example,  there 
was  in  the  beginning  Chaos  and  Eros  (the  vital  im- 
pulse). Chaos  divided  itself  into  Tartaros  and  the 
Earth,  and  Earth  brought  forth  out  of  herself  the  Sky 
and  the  Ocean.  Uranos,  moved  by  the  vital  impulse, 
fertilised  Geea  and  begot  the  Titans  and  Cyclops,  but 
was  mutilated  by  the  Titan  Kronos,  and  deposed  from 
his  lordship.  Yet  neither  was  the  lordship  of  Kronos 
lasting ;  for  he  too  was  only  the  wild  purposeless  and 
untamable  nature-force  which  swallows  again  its  own 
children.  He  was  overpowered  by  the  youngest  of 
his  sons,  Zeus,  who  shared  the  lordship  of  the  world 
with  his  brothers  Poseidon  and  Aidoneus.  But  even 
Zeus  had  still  to  secure  his  lordship  from  the  revolt  of 
the  giants,  the  successors  of  the  Titans ;  and  it  was 
only  with  the  conquest  of  these  that  the  crude  elemen- 
tary forces  of  Nature  were  for  ever  subdued  by  the 
rational  and  harmonious  ruling  of  the  Olympians,  those 
human  Gods.  Thus,  according  to  Hesiod's  cosmogony, 
the  present  world  of  the  Gods  and  men  is  the  last 
product  of  a  gradual  development  of  higher  and  higher 
formations  out  of  the  primal  Chaos.     The  same  thought 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  269 

was  carried  out  by  the  Ionian  Nature-philosophy,  which 
made  the  world  arise  out  of  one  or  several  elements 
through  separation  and  combination,  or  constructed 
it  out  of  compositions  of  the  original  simple  atoms. 
The  first  of  the  Greek  philosophers  who  represented 
the  chaotic  first  matter  as  formed  through  the  ordering 
understanding  of  God  (the  vov^)  was  Anaxagoras,  whom 
Aristotle  on  that  account  called  "  the  first  sober  one 
among  drunken  ones." 

There  is  not  unfrequently  found  in  the  mythology 
of  the  Nature-religions  a  combination  of  Theogony  and 
a  divine  formation  of  matter  in  such  a  way  that  the 
Gods — whether  all  or  some  or  one  of  them — are  the 
first  products  of  Chaos,  but  then  they  form  the  rest  of 
the  world  out  of  it.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the  Indian 
mythology  Prajapati  proceeded  out  of  the  golden  world- 
egg,  and  then  became  the  creative  former  of  the  world. 
Likewise,  in  the  Chaldean  mythology  the  great  Gods 
arose  at  first  out  of  Chaos,  and  they  then  created  the 
other  Gods  and  the  living  beings  of  heaven  and 
earth. 

The  doctrine  first  expressed  among  the  Greeks  by 
Anaxagoras,  that  the  rational  spirit  is  the  world-order- 
ing principle,  is  found  outside  of  the  Biblical  religion 
only  among  the  Persians  whose  legend  of  Creation  has 
a  close  affinity  with  the  Biblical  account,  and  perhaps 
even  exercised  a  historical  influence  upon  it.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Zendavesta,  the  all- wise  spirit  Ahura  created 


270  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

the  world  in  so  far  as  it  is  good  by  his  excellent  word, 
with  the  purpose  of  forming  a  bulwark  between  the 
hostile  kingdoms  of  the  uncreated  light  and  the  un- 
created darkness.  The  Creation  was  accomplished  in 
365  days  and  in  six  acts,  in  the  course  of  which  were 
formed  the  heavens  and  the  lights  of  heaven,  water, 
earth,  plants,  beasts,  and  men.  Every  earthly  class  of 
beings  is  the  copy  of  a  heavenly  ideal — that  is,  is  the 
realising  of  a  divine  idea.  Ahura  made  the  first  human 
pair  grow  out  of  a  twin-tree,  and  he  implanted  in  their 
bodies  their  pre-created  souls.  This  creation  of  Ahura 
was,  like  himself,  perfectly  good  and  pure ;  but  it  was 
spoiled  by  the  hostile  spirit  Ahriman  (Angromainyu), 
who  to  the  good  everywhere  added  the  bad  and  per- 
nicious— the  naivest  solution  of  the  question  regard- 
ing the  origin  of  evil,  in  which  the  greatest  difficulty 
of  the  abstract  super-naturalistic  doctrine  of  Creation 
lies. 

Whereas  Nature-religion  made  Nature  the  absolute 
principle  out  of  which  even  the  spiritual  and  divine 
was  to  arise,  on  the  other  hand  the  Biblical  relioion 
puts  in  the  first  place  the  supernatural  Spirit  of  God 
as  the  omnipotent  principle  of  all  becoming,  and 
explains  the  world  from  His  will,  which  expressed 
itself  in  His  word  of  command.  Yet  it  is  not  exactly 
a  Creation  out  of  nothing  that  is  taught  even  in 
Genesis,  but  a  formation  of  the  world  out  of  the  initial 
Chaos,  which  is  consequently  presupposed  as  formless 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  271 

matter  present  to  the  divine  creative  activity.      The 
description  in  Genesis  i.  of  the  gradual  separation  of 
Chaos  into  light  and  darkness,  above  and  below,  wet 
and  dry,  and  then  of  the  filling  up  of  these  spheres  of  the 
world  with  their  appurtenant  living  beings  in  the  work 
of  six  days,  has  a  close  affinity  with  the  Persian  and 
Chaldean  legend.    It  is  a  religious  speculation  in  which 
reflection  is  already  much  further   advanced  than  in 
the  naiver  narrative  of  Genesis  ii.     While  in  Genesis  i. 
a  uniform  plan  reigns,  and  the  acts  of  Creation  proceed 
in  a  teleological  series  of  stages,  in  Genesis  ii.,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Creation  begins  with  the  formation  of 
the  man  out  of  a  clod  of  earth;  and  thereupon  the 
Garden  of  Eden  is  planted  for  his  dwelling-place,  then 
the  beasts  are  created  as  his  helpers,  and  finally  the 
woman  was  formed  out  of  a  rib  of  the  man.     Here  no 
regular  planned  progress  finds  place,  but  what  is  most 
immediately  necessary  is  only  created  as  occasion  -re- 
quired, and  in  it  a  defect  always  again  exhibits  itself, 
and  this  impels  to  further  creating.     Even  the  mode  of 
the   creating   is   represented    still   more   naively:    the 
beings  are  not  called  into  existence  by  the  simple  word 
of  command,  but  God  Himself  puts  His  hand  to  the 
work ;  He  plants  the  garden,  forms  Adam  out  of  the 
earth,  breathes  breath  into  his  nostrils,  frames  Eve  out 
of  his  rib,  and  afterwards  makes  for  our  first  parents 
their  first  clothing  out  of  skins.    The  striking  naivete  of 
these  ideas  seemed  to  the  Greek  fathers  to  be  a  clear 


272  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

proof  that  this  whole  narrative  was  not  meant  to  be 
taken  literally  bvit  allegorically. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  Creation  is  clistino-uished 
from  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  by  the  significant 
thought  that  the  world  was  created  through  the  divine 
Logos — by  which  is  now  no  longer  meant  the  mere 
word  of  command,  but  the  divine  Spirit  which  is  active 
in  the  world,  and  which  finds  the  culmination  of  its 
revelation  in  the  Son  of  God,  on  which  account  the  Son 
Himself  is  also  designated  as  the  Mediator  and  final 
end  of  the  Creation  (John  i.  1 ;  Heb.  i.  2 ;  Col.  i.  16). 
The  meaning  of  this  New  Testament  doctrine  is  seldom 
understood  in  its  far-reaching  significance ;  and  this  is 
natural,  because  we  are  not  accustomed  to  distinguish 
between  the  divine  Logos  and  the  man  Jesus.  Absurd 
as  would  be  the  notion  that  the  world  was  created  by 
and  for  Jesus,  as  profoundly  true  is  the  thought  that  it 
is  a  work  of  the  divine  reason  which  orders  the  chaos 
of  forces  from  eternity  to  eternity,  and  guides  the 
course  of  the  development  of  the  world  to  the  final  end 
of  a  moral  kingdom  of  spirits.  That  the  divine  idea  of 
man  as  "  the  son  of  His  love,"  and  of  humanity  as  the 
kingdom  of  this  Son  of  God  (Col.  i.  13),  is  the  im- 
manent final  cause  of  all  existence  and  development 
even  in  the  prior  world  of  Nature, — this  has  been  the 
fundamental  thought  of  the  Christian  Gnosis  since  the 
apostolic  age,  and  I  think  that  no  philosophy  has  yet 
been  able  to  shake  or  to  surpass  this  thought — the 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  273 

corner-stone  of  an  idealistic  view  of  the  world.  The 
whole  idealistic  philosophy  of  modern  times  is  in  fact 
only  the  carrying  out  and  grounding  of  the  conviction, 
that  Nature  is  ordered  by  spirit  and  for  spirit  as  a 
subservient  means  for  its  eternal  ends ;  that  it  is  there- 
fore not,  as  the  heathen  naturalism  thought,  the  one 
and  all,  the  last  and  highest  of  things,  but  has  the 
spirit  and  its  moral  ends  over  it  as  its  lord  and  master. 
This  is  the  true,  the  only  genuine  supernaturalism, 
which  is  just  as  far  removed  from  the  abstract  Jewish 
supernaturalism  as  from  the  heathen  naturalism.  For 
if  the  Logos  is  the  rational  purposive  thinking  of  God, 
the  ordering  power  over  Nature,  then  Nature  is  an 
ordered  system  of  final  thoughts,  its  process  of  becom- 
ing is  a  development  from  lower  to  higher,  in  the  whole 
of  which  every  individual  thing  has  its  determined 
place,  and  serves  the  whole  according  to  the  law  of  its 
kind.  As  the  order  of  means  for  the  ends  of  the  spirit, 
as  the  causal  mechanism  for  the  teleological  idea, 
Nature  comes  to  its  full  right,  asserts  its  inner  confor- 
mity to  law  and  purpose,  and  does  not  become  the  foot- 
ball of  an  external  arbitrary  will  or  the  playground 
of  a  divine  omnipotence  whose  "  supernatural  miracles  " 
would  put  in  the  place  of  the  real  Nature  an  imaginary 
super-nature,  which  would  be  no  Nature  at  all.  The 
view  of  the  world  which  alone  truly  corresponds  to  the 
principle  of  Christianity  is  this  moral  idealism,  which 
perfectly  accords  with  intellectual  realism,  being  as  far 
VOL.  I.  s 


274  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

removed  from  the  Jewish  fantastic-apocalyptic  supra- 
naturalism  as  from  the  heathen  spiritless  and  godless 
naturalism.  These  two  extremes  are  the  ever-threaten- 
ing enemies  of  Christian  truth,  and  to  them  are  due, 
even  in  our  own  day,  the  conflicts  between  faith  and 
knowledge. 

The  Church  of  the  second  century  had  to  guard 
itself  from  the  danger  of  falling  back  into  heathen 
naturalism,  a  danger  which  threatened  it  from  Gnos- 
ticism. In  the  course  of  this  conflict,  however,  the 
Church  itself  fell  into  the  abstract  Jewish  super- 
naturalism,  to  which  it  gave  the  harshest  expression  in 
the  doctrine  that  the  world  was  created  out  of  nothing 
by  a  free  act  of  the  divine  omnipotence  in  time — with 
which  position  the  reality  of  Nature  was  as  much  put 
in  question  theoretically  as  its  right  was  practically 
denied  in  Asceticism.  The  hostility  to  Nature  of  the 
medieval  supernaturalistic  Christianity  was  the  opposite 
extreme  to  the  naturalism  of  the  ancient  world.  With 
the  Eenascence  of  the  ancient  culture,  love  of  Nature, 
and  consequently  also  the  study  of  it,  began  to  waken 
anew ;  and  out  of  it  arose  the  collisions  between  the 
science  of  Nature  and  the  doctrine  of  Creation,  which 
have  never  since  ceased. 

The  discoveries  of  astronomy  gave  occasion  to  the 
first  conflict.  The  Heliocentric  system  of  the  world  of 
Copernicus  appeared  to  the  theologian  Melanchthon, 
otherwise  so  mild,  as  a  godless  innovation  which  the 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  275 

government  ought  to  suppress.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  in  taking  this  view  he  showed  more  insight  into  the 
bearing  of  this  innovation  than  do  most  of  the  theolo- 
gians of  our  day,  who  are  wont  to  ignore,  or  at  least  as 
far  as  possible  to  minimise,  the  antagonism  between  the 
Copernican  and  the  Biblical  or  Geocentric  view  of  the 
world.  The  ojDposition  in  fact  affects  not  the  Biblical 
history  of  Creation  only,  but  its  consequences  reach 
still  further.  If  the  resting  earth  becomes  a  rolling 
globe,  and  the  fixed  vault  of  the  heavens  becomes  the 
infinite  space  of  the  world,  then  for  the  religious  fan- 
tasy, with  the  fixed  above  and  heloiv,  disappears  also  the 
frame  within  which  it  had  localised  the  chief  acts  of 
the  divine-human  drama  of  the  history  of  salvation, 
from  Paradise  on  till  the  second  coming  of  Christ. 
But  if  the  external  theatre  in  space  is  withdrawn  from 
these  acts,  they  can  no  longer  be  represented  as  ex- 
ternal events,  and  the  necessity  therefore  appears  im- 
posed on  the  religious  thinker  to  apprehend  the  divine 
revelation  as  not  in  space  and  not  in  sense,  but  as  a 
spiritual  process  in  the  human  consciousness.  Further, 
when  it  is  held  that  the  earth  is  no  longer  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  centre  of  the  universe,  the  position  of 
man  in  relation  to  the  order  of  the  whole  appears  also 
to  be  changed.  As  the  inhabitant  of  a  small  province 
of  the  universe,  he  can  no  longer  claim  that  the  whole 
world  should  direct  itself  according  to  his  wishes,  that 
from  regard  to  his  wants  the  sun  should  stand  still 


276  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

several  hours,  or  the  shadow  of  the  sun-dial  go  hack- 
wards.  When  the  conformity  to  law  in  the  movement 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  was  once  recognised,  it  was  a 
near  consequence  that  the  processes  of  earthly  nature 
are  also  subject  to  the  same  conformity  to  law.  The 
progress  of  mathematics  and  physics  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  led  to  an  entirely  new  con- 
ception of  "Nature."  The  place  of  final  causes  was 
taken  by  mechanical  causalism ;  the  place  of  angels 
and  demons  and  of  arbitrary  acts  of  omnipotence  was 
taken  by  the  universal  inviolable  law  of  the  universe. 

To  this  revolution  in  the  view  of  nature  philo- 
sophical expression  was  given  by  Spinoza.  The  key- 
stone of  his  philosophy  is  the  thought  that  God  is  the 
causa  immancns  of  the  world,  and  that  the  divine 
causality  does  not  work  with  arbitrariness,  but  that 
all  its  operations  follow  as  necessarily  from  its  nature 
as  the  properties  of  the  triangle  do  from  its  essence. 
Eegarding  the  traditional  conception  of  Creation, 
Spinoza  judged  that  it  turns  God  into  arbitrariness, 
and  the  world  into  chance ;  and  instead  of  it,  accord- 
ing to  him,  God  should  be  thought  as  the  natura 
naturans  which  unfolds  itself  naturally  in  the  natura 
naturata,  just  as  every  force  unfolds  itself  in  the 
totality  of  its  effects.  As  long  as  men  wish  to  find 
everywhere  in  nature  the  particular  intentions  of  one 
governor  or  of  several,  who  arbitrarily  direct  things 
with  reference  to  the  advantage  or  harm  of  men,  so 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  277 

long  is  a  sound  knowledge  of  nature  impossible.  The 
delusive  idea,  that  in  all  the  processes  of  nature  extra- 
mundane  powers  have  their  hand  in  play,  and  prose- 
cute their  particular  intentions,  is,  according  to  Spinoza, 
an  asylum  ignorantice  ministering  to  human  selfishness, 
a  superstition  which  makes  men  the  slaves  of  their 
own  imaginations  and  passions ;  and  in  opposition  to 
which,  the  true  piety  consists  in  recognising  God's 
revelation  in  the  eternal  laws  of  the  world's  order, 
and  in  accommodating  one's  self  to  it  submissively. 
Certainly  Spinoza  was  right  in  combating  the  abstract 
supernaturalism  with  its  external  and  arbitrary  direct- 
ing of  things  according  to  particular  intentions,  and  in 
energetically  representing  the  conformity  to  law  of  all 
that  happens  in  nature,  which  is  the  principle  of  modern 
science.  But  in  his  polemical  zeal  Spinoza  shot  be- 
yond the  mark  in  understanding  the  conformity  to  law 
of  what  happens  so  that  it  excludes  all  purposiveness, 
— a  view  in  agreement  with  this  other  that  he  was  able 
to  apprehend  God  only  as  substance,  as  efficient  force, 
and  not  as  spirit  or  as  active  thought  positing  ends. 
The  consequence  of  this  was,  that  his  view  of  the  world 
had  a  wavering  tendency  towards  a  naturalism  with 
which  the  Biblical  idealism  cannot  be  combined. 

Leibnitz  sought  to  remove  this  defect  by  thinking  of 
nature  as  the  system  of  both  efficient  causes  and  of 
final  causes  at  once — the  former  according  to  its  cor- 
poreal manifestation,  the  latter  according  to  its  inward 


278  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

psychical  side.  In  like  manner  Leibnitz  sought  to 
understand  God's  causality  as  free  and  necessary  at 
the  same  time,  in  so  far  as  God  has  created  the  world 
as  it  is,  not  indeed  with  physical  but  with  moral  neces- 
sity, by  choosing  out  of  many  possible  worlds  the  best 
for  actualisation.  This  position  had  the  effect,  not  in 
the  intention  of  Leibnitz  himself,  but  according  to  the 
way  in  which  it  was  apprehended  by  his  followers,  of 
opening  the  door  anew  to  the  Deistic  separation  of  God 
from  the  world,  and  to  the  arbitrary  teleology  which 
then  diffused  itself  and  made  itself  ridiculous  in  the 
popular  Physico-theology  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Hence  profounder  minds  like  Lessing,  Herder,  and 
Goethe  returned  again  to  Spinoza,  yet  in  such  a  way 
that  they  completed  the  abstract  Monism  of  substance 
by  Leibnitz's  Monadology,  and  the  ateleological  causal- 
ism  by  Leibnitz's  teleology.  God  is  conceived  as  the 
spirit  which  inwardly  moves  and  rules  Nature,  and 
jSTature  as  the  manifestation  of  His  rational  purposive 
thoughts,  as  "  the  living  garment  of  the  Deity " 
(Goethe).  In  Fichte's  high  -  strung  idealism  Nature 
lost  all  reality,  and  became  the  mere  representation  of 
the  mind,  which  in  this  image  of  its  own  imagination 
creates  the  material  of  its  moral  activity.  For  the 
rest,  Fichte  rejected  as  decidedly  as  Spinoza  the  super- 
naturalistic  conception  of  Creation :  he  called  it  the 
fundamental  error  of  all  false  metaphysics,  a  Jewish 
and  heathen  principle  by  which  the  conception  of  the 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  279 

Deity  is  fundamentally  corrupted,  and  invested  with 
an  arbitrariness  which  operates  prejudicially  upon  the 
whole  religious  system.  It  was  Fichte's  conception  of 
the  moral  world -order  which  excluded  the  lawless 
arbitrariness  of  the  abstract  super-naturalism,  Schel- 
ling's  nature-philosophy  restored  to  nature  its  reality, 
but  conceived  of  it  as  the  means  subservient  to  the 
ideal  ends  of  the  spirit  which  develops  itself  through 
the  staires  of  the  existence  in  nature  in  order  to  come 
to  itself  in  man  as  spirit.  Nature  thus  appears  as  the 
means  posited  by  the  spirit  for  the  self-realisation  of 
the  spirit ;  and  its  becoming  thus  appears  as  the  pre- 
liminary history  of  the  development  of  the  human 
spirit. 

However  much  the  philosophy  of  nature  may  have 
erred  by  arbitrary  hypotheses  and  a  priori  construc- 
tions, yet  this  one  merit  must  be  conceded  to  it,  that 
it  first  applied  the  great  principle  of  development  to 
nature,  and  thereby  showed  the  way  which  can  lead 
men  beyond  the  antagonism  of  the  traditional  super- 
naturalism  and  the  mechanism  which  reigned  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  The  first  who 
trod  this  so  important  way  was  Herder.  In  his  '  Ideas 
for  a  Philosophy  of  History '  he  viewed  man  as  the 
final  goal  to  which  the  terrestrial  organisation  strove. 
Through  the  whole  scale  of  beings,  from  the  stone  to 
the  animal,  and  at  last  to  man,  the  form  of  organi- 
sation rose  higher  and  higher ;  the  impulses  and  forces 


280  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

of  the  creatures  became  more  multifarious  in  kind,  and 
at  last  they  were  all  combined  in  the  form  of  man. 
The  beasts,  says  Herder,  are  men's  elder  brothers,  the 
prior  stages  upon  which  formative  nature  exhibited 
separately,  in  passing,  what  it  wished  to  realise  in  man. 
Man  can  only  obtain  his  lordship  over  the  other  crea- 
tures by  combating  for  it.  For  all  things  are  in  con- 
flict with  each  other,  because  all  are  hard  beset.  Every 
species  cares  for  itself  as  if  it  were  the  only  one ;  but 
at  its  side  there  stands  another  which  restricts  it  to 
certain  limits,  and  only  in  this  relationship  of  opposite 
species  did  nature  find  the  means  for  the  preservation 
of  the  whole.  It  is  only  through  the  equilibrium  of 
forces  that  peace  comes  about  in  the  Creation.  Herder 
therefore  conceived  the  becoming  of  the  terrestrial 
nature  as  a  development  of  more  and  more  complicated 
organisms  out  of  simple  organisms,  a  development  in 
which  even  the  conflict  of  living  beings  with  each 
other,  the  "  struggle  for  existence,"  played  an  essential 
part.  The  question,  however,  as  to  the  How  ?  of  the 
proceeding  of  one  form  of  life  out  of  the  other  forms 
of  life,  still  remained  undetermined  in  the  specula- 
tions of  the  nature -philosophers.  This  was  supple- 
mented and  completed  by  the  scientific  investigators  of 
nature.  Lamarck,  at  the  beginning  of  our  century, 
taught  that  the  various  species  had  proceeded  out  of 
the  simplest  organisms,  which  had  arisen  by  original 
generation  through  accommodation  to  the  altered  con- 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  281 

ditions  of  life  ;  but  he  found  no  approval  as  yet  in  his 
own  time.  It  was  first  through  Darwin  that  the  doc- 
trine of  development  obtained  prominent  recognition. 
As  is  well  known,  he  started  from  the  observation  that 
in  the  breeding  of  plants  and  animals  great  varieties  of 
species  can  be  attained  by  individuals  possessing  definite 
properties  being  used  for  propagation,  whose  specific 
peculiarity  is  then  increased  more  and  more  by  in- 
heritance from  generation  to  generation.  From  this 
he  inferred  that  it  was  through  a  similar  procedure  in 
nature,  called  "Natural  Selection,"  that  all  organic 
species  had  developed  themselves  out  of  an  original 
fundamental  form.  Natural  selection  was  explained 
by  Darwin  from  the  fact  that  in  the  universal  struggle 
for  existence,  it  is  always  only  the  individuals  best 
adapted  to  their  conditions  of  life  that  survive  ;  and  as 
these  individuals  transmit  their  peculiarly  favourable 
qualifications  to  their  descendants  with  a  continuous 
increase  of  their  peculiarity,  the  manifold  species  are 
thus  formed  in  the  course  of  generations  out  of  the 
gradual  accumulation  of  the  specific  differences. 

The  justification  of  this  theory  of  natural  science — 
which  we,  of  course,  have  not  to  examine  here  in  detail 
— appears  to  me  to  consist  in  this,  that  it  is  in  full 
earnest  with  the  thought  of  the  development  of  all 
life.  To  every  view  that  regards  things  as  having  been 
artificially  made  according  to  accidental  designs,  there 
is  herewith  opposed  the  insight  that  all  that  lives  is  a 


282  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

becoming  from  within  through  proper  self-activity  which 
unfolds  the  germs  lying  in  a  being  according  to  its  own 
law,  and  makes  itself  in  actuality  that  for  which  the 
real  potentiality  lay  in  its  nature.  But  at  the  same  time 
there  must  always  be  presupposed  an  inner  living  im- 
pulse which  strives  after,  not  its  preservation  merely, 
but  also  its  exertion  and  unfolding  in  a  definite  direc- 
tion. This  inner  factor  was  not  quite  overlooked  by 
Darwin,  as  he  lays  it  at  the  very  basis  of  the  struggle 
for  existence  as  well  as  of  sexual  attraction ;  but  Dar- 
win has  ascribed  less  significance  to  this  inner  psychi- 
cal principle  than  to  the  external  conditions  of  life, 
from  which  he  derived  all  variations.  In  this  it  ap- 
pears to  me  that  there  lies  a  one-sidedness,  which,  how- 
ever, does  not  affect  the  theory  of  development  as  such, 
but  only  the  application  to  which  it  has  been  put, 
and  this  not  so  much  by  Darwin  himself  as  rather  by 
the  successors  of  that  great  investigator  of  nature,  in  so 
far  as  it  has  been  turned  by  them  to  account  in  order 
to  found  upon  it  a  materialistic  view  of  the  world. 
The  opinion  prevailing  on  this  point,  that  through  the 
causal  development  of  life  all  and  every  teleology  is 
excluded,  is  a  fatal  error.  That  causality  and  teleology 
are  rather  the  inseparably  coherent  sides  of  all  organic 
life,  was  already  known  by  Aristotle,  and  has  been  irre- 
futably shown  by  Leibnitz  and  Kant.  What  else,  then, 
is  the  living  impulse  of  a  being  which  struggles  for 
self-preservation  in  conflict  with  the  external  world, 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  283 

than  a  striving  after  the  realisation  of  the  possibility 
inherent  in  its  essence,  and  therefore  after  an  indwelling 
end  ?  If,  however,  nature  is  a  system  of  unconscious 
correlative  final  causes,  or  forces  striving  towards  a 
goal,  then  it  presupposes  a  universal  purposive  thought, 
and  consequently  an  end-positing  reason,  as  the  organ- 
ising purposive  cause  of  the  whole.  If  the  Darwinian 
doctrine  of  development  has  been  made  use  of  in  order 
by  its  aid  to  derive  life  itself  from  the  primal  matter, 
and  to  give  an  apparently  scientific  grounding  to 
materialism,  this  has  been  an  inconsiderate  confound- 
ing of  the  most  heterogeneous  things.  David  Friedrich 
Strauss  in  his  last  book,  '  The  Old  Faith  and  the  New,' 
has  set  forth  the  opinion  that  motion  may  be  trans- 
formed under  certain  circumstances  as  well  into  sensa- 
tion as  into  heat ;  but  Zeller  has  rightly  objected  to  this 
view  that  the  transmutation  of  motion  into  ideas  not 
only  lacks  all  relevant  analogy,  but  that  this  assump- 
tion also  involves  the  clear  contradiction  that  the 
embracing  of  the  manifold  into  the  unity  of  conscious- 
ness would  have  to  be  explained  without  a  single  sub- 
ject of  consciousness.  This  is  generally  the  cardinal 
error  of  all  materialism,  that  it  would  explain  the 
world  out  of  mere  states  and  processes  of  external  ob- 
jective being,  and  does  not  pause  to  think  that  we 
should  know  nothing  at  all  of  this  being  without  a 
subjective  consciousness,  which  is  therefore  to  be  al- 
ways presupposed  in  our  knowing  of  things,  and  there- 


284  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

fore  cannot  be  derived  from  it.  How,  then,  could  we 
know  anything,  even  of  the  conformity  to  law  of  the 
motion  of  bodies,  without  our  embracing  the  percep- 
tions that  follow  each  other  in  time,  in  the  unity  of  an 
act  of  thought  which  presupjDoses  a  consciousness  that 
continues  identical  with  itself  in  the  change  of  its  ideas, 
and  which  refers  the  change  of  its  contents  to  the  iden- 
tity of  its  self-activity  ?  Moreover,  it  has  been  at  length 
openly  confessed  by  the  more  circumspect  even  among 
the  investigators  of  nature,  that  it  is  impossible  to  ex- 
plain sensation  and  consciousness,  and  therefore  the 
actual  human  world  itself,  by  materialistic  presupposi- 
tions. With  this  all  reason  for  any  anxiety  concerning 
the  irreligious  consequences  of  the  doctrine  of  devel- 
opment falls  away ;  but  if  its  extravagances  are  set 
aside,  we  may  with  the  more  freedom  from  bias  ex- 
amine its  true  significance  for  the  religious  view  of  the 
world,  and  we  may  draw  the  balance  of  loss  and  gain 
resulting  from  it  as  regards  the  traditional  supernatural- 
istic  doctrine  of  creation. 

And  first  of  all,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  doctrine 
of  development,  the  literal  truth  of  the  Biblical  narra- 
tive of  the  six  days'  v7ork  of  Creation — according  to 
which  the  world  has  been  called  into  existence  "cut 
and  dried  "  out  of  nothing,  by  means  of  certain  divine 
miraculous  acts  —  is  a  position  which  must  be  given 
up.  Therewith  we  undoubtedly  lose  a  convenient 
answer  to  the  question  regarding  the  Wliencc  of  the 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  285 

world,  which  seemed  to  be  so  simply  solved  by  the  six 
days'  work.  But  yet  only  seemed!  For  it  could  not 
escape  any  one  who  reflected  in  any  measure  upon  it 
that  that  answer  was  sketched  from  the  standpoint  of 
a  still  very  childish  view  of  the  world,  which  our 
present  knowledge  has  far  outgrown.  We  need  no 
longer  enter  upon  the  details  of  the  Biblical  history 
of  Creation,  after  having  shown  its  contradiction  in 
principle  with  the  Copernican  system  of  the  world. 
But  even  the  dogmatic  formulas  of  the  supernatural- 
istic  doctrine  of  Creation  are  of  no  greater  value. 
With  the  proposition  that  God  has  called  the  world 
out  of  nothing  into  existence,  no  positive  thought  can 
be  connected.  "  Out  of  nothing  comes  nothing,"  or 
what  appears  to  have  come  out  of  it  has  merely  an 
apparent  being ;  it  is  an  enchanted  nothing,  an  illu- 
sionary  phantasm  like  the  dream  of  Maya :  but  such  a 
merely  apparent  existence  cannot  be  seriously  ascribed 
by  us  to  the  world,  for  we  know  at  least  that  we 
ourselves  and  our  fellow-men  are  something,  and  do 
not  merely  appear  to  be.  We  have  also  come  to  know 
God's  being  from  His  revelation  in  the  order  of  the 
world ;  and  if  the  reality  of  the  world  became  doubtful 
to  us,  the  being  of  God  would  also  become  subject  to 
the  same  doubt,  and  then  we  would  have  to  go 
through  the  same  dialectic  again,  by  which  the 
Brahmanic  Akosmism,  that  had  explained  the  world 
as    mere    seeming,   led    to   the   Buddhistic    Atheism, 


286  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

Hence  we  cannot  give  up  the  reality  of  the  world, 
both  on  account  of  our  own  selves  and  on  account  of 
the  reality  of  God ;  and  hence  we  cannot  rest  in  the 
position  that  the  world,  having  arisen  out  of  nothing, 
is,  as  it  were,  an  enchanted  nothing.  Much  rather 
would  we  prefer  to  say  with  ancient  Church  fathers 
and  modern  philosophers,  that  the  world  has  its  sub- 
stance from  the  will  of  God,  and  its  form  from  the 
understanding  of  God.  Further,  a  beginning  and  end- 
ing in  time  of  the  creating  of  God  are  not  thinkable. 
That  would  be  to  suppose  a  change  of  creating  and 
resting  in  God,  which  would  equalise  God's  being  with 
the  changeable  course  of  human  life.  N"or  could  it  be 
conceived  what  should  have  hindered  God  from  creat- 
ing the  world  up  to  tlie  beginning  of  His  creating.  If 
He  had  previously  either  not  yet  had  the  power  or 
not  the  will  to  do  it,  He  would  have  been  in  so  far 
imperfect,  and  therefore  not  yet  true  God ;  but  this 
would  contradict  the  conception  of  His  eternity  and 
unchangeableness.  But  as  regards  the  ending  of  Crea- 
tion with  the  six  days'  work,  this  opinion  is  corrected 
by  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  itself,  in  so  far  as  it 
designates  the  preservation  of  the  world  as  a  "con- 
tinual creation,"  and  consequently  will  not  think  of 
creation  as  concluded  at  any  one  time.  Moreover, 
geology  teaches  us  that  the  earth  has  passed  through 
various  periods  of  indefinitely  long  duration  before  it 
attained  a  formation  of  its  surface  that  was  fitted  to 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  287 

be  a  dwelling-place  for  man ;  while  astronomy  teaches 
that  in  the  universe  there  are  always  celestial  bodies 
and  even  whole  sun-systems  still  arising,  and  therefore 
that  creation  is  not  yet  ended  to-day.  All  this  agrees 
in  leading  to  the  conclusion  that  we  must  give  up  the 
assumption  of  a  creation  that  happened  but  once,  and 
that  has  begun  and  ended  in  time;  and  instead  of  it 
we  prefer  to  say  rather  with  Scotus  Erigena  that  the 
divine  creating  is  equally  eternal  with  His  being. 
Hence  the  world  thus  viewed  continues  to  be  the 
region  of  temporal,  changeable,  and  transitory  being, 
even  if  this  whole  of  risen  and  perishing  parts  has 
itself  never  begun  nor  will  cease  to  exist.  If  we 
therefore  put  in  the  place  of  single  supernaturalistic 
acts  of  creation  rather  the  eternal  and  omnipresent 
activity  of  the  divine  omnipotence  and  omniscience 
in  the  world,  then,  as  it  seems  to  me,  we  have  lost 
nothing  at  all  for  the  religious  view  of  the  world,  but 
we  have  won  for  science  freedom  to  investigate  the 
efficient  causes  and  laws  in  the  natural  connection  of 
things,  without  coming  into  collision  with  religious 
presuppositions,  since  the  divine  omnipotence,  as  eter- 
nally omnipresent,  works  not  without  but  through 
the  order  of  finite  causes  in  conformity  with  law. 
What  leads  to  the  endless  conflicts  with  natural 
science  is  not  the  idealism  of  the  religious  view  of 
the  world  as  such,  but  only  its  traditional  investment 
in  that  abstract  supernaturalism  which  makes  omni- 


288  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

potence  work  as  an  anthropomorphic  cause  without 
and  against  the  order  of  the  whole.  This  anthropo- 
morphic and  miraculous  supernaturalism  invariably 
calls  forth  the  reaction  of  naturalism,  which  then  re- 
jects with  the  mythical  envelope  also  the  true  religious 
kernel,  the  lordship  of  the  spirit  over  nature,  and  leads 
to  the  heathen  deification  of  material  existence.  If 
we  would  protect  ourselves  from  that  unspiritual  and 
godless  naturalism,  which  in  fact  contains  the  greatest 
danger  for  religion  and  morality,  we  ought  not  to  seek 
our  refuge  with  the  supernaturalism  which  puts  G-od 
out  of  the  world,  and  which  on  that  account  can  never 
become  truly  master  of  naturalism,  because  it  is  at 
bottom  itself  only  another  refined  form  of  it,  in  so  far 
as  it  rears  up  a  second  fantastic  nature  above  the  real 
nature.  Nay,  we  must  rather  seek  escape  from  this 
"  vicious  circle  "  in  the  idealism  of  the  truly  religious 
view  of  the  world,  which  finds  the  divine  spirit  every- 
where present  and  active  in  the  world, — loitliout  in 
nature  as  creative  vital  force,  and  within  in  our  own 
heart  as  the  voice  of  truth  and  love.  This  is  what  the 
apostle  meant  when  he  said,  "  He  is  not  far  from  any 
one  of  us ;  for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being."  And  it  is  what  Goethe  means  in  the  classi- 
cal passage:  "What  were  a  God  who  only  gave  the 
world  a  push  from  without,  or  let  it  spin  round  His 
finger  ?  It  is  fitting  for  Him  to  move  the  world 
from  within,  to  foster  Nature  in  Himself,  Himself  in 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  289 

Nature ;  so  that  whatever  lives  and  moves  and  has  its 
being  in  Him,  never  lacks  His  power  or  His  spirit."  ^ 

A  special  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  development 
is  often  raised  with  regard  to  the  position  of  man  in 
relation  to  the  sub-human  nature.  If  a  continuous 
natural  development  between  the  sphere  of  nature 
below  man  and  man  is  accepted,  does  not  man  then 
lose  his  distinguished  position  and  distinguishing  dig- 
nity, and  is  he  not  lowered  to  the  level  of  the  beasts  ? 
I  can  assign  no  great  importance  to  this  objection. 
The  religious  dignity  of  man  rests,  after  all,  in  any  case 
upon  what  he  is,  not  upon  the  mode  and  manner  in 
which  he  has  become  what  he  is.  It  is  his  rational 
capacity  which  makes  him  man,  and  distinguishes  him 
from  the  beast ;  and  this  prerogative  remains  precisely 
the  same  in  whatever  way  the  entering  of  this  rational 
being  into  terrestrial  existence  may  be  thought  to  have 
been  brought  about.  Whether  God  immediately  formed 
him  out  of  a  lump  of  earth  —  which  is,  after  all,  no 
peculiarly  distinguished  material — or  caused  him  to  be 
gradually  developed  out  of  unnumbered  generations  of 
the  terrestrial  Fauna,  the  one  is  no  better  and  no 
worse  than  the  other,  and  neither  of  them  can  occasion 

^ ' '  Was  war  ein  Gott,  der  nur  von  aussen  stiesse, 
Iin  Kreis  das  All  am  Finger  laufen  liesse  ? 
Ihm  ziemt's  die  Welt  im  Innern  zu  bewegen, 
Sich  in  Natur,  Natur  in  Sich  zu  liegen, 
So  dass,  was  in  Ihm  lebt  und  webt  und  ist, 
Nie  seine  Kraft,  nie  seinen  Geist  vermisst !  " 

VOL.  I.  T 


290  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

any  disparagement  whatever  to  the  dignity  of  man. 
We  do  not  feel  ourselves  at  all  degraded  by  the  fact 
that  during  our  embryonic  pre-existence  we  must  pass 
through  various  forms  of  lower  animal  existence ;  why 
then  should  the  human  species  be  more  ignoble  if  it 
lived  through  as  many  thousand  years  of  preliminary 
animal  stages  upon  earth  before  it  entered  into  the 
appearance  of  man,  as  the  individual  now  lives  through 
days  of  embryonic  animal  pre-existence  ?  Are  not  a 
thousand  years  before  God  as  one  day  ?  Instead  of  the 
loss  that  is  feared,  the  doctrine  of  development  might 
rather  indicate  a  gain  for  the  position  of  humanity  in 
the  universe.  If  man  is  the  crown  of  creation  in  the 
sense  that  the  whole  process  of  development  in  nature 
has  striven  towards  his  appearance,  then  he  stands  no 
longer  in  opposition  to  nature  as  to  an  alien  and  hostile 
power,  but  he  recognises  in  it  a  fore-stage  of  his  own 
life,  a  divining  and  yearning  of  the  still  unfree  spirit  in 
its  animal  state,  for  which  the  fulfilment  and  liberation 
has  come,  and  will  further  come,  in  himself.  Thus  has 
the  apostle  Paul  said  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth 
and  travaileth  in  pain  togetlier  until  now,  and  waiteth 
for  the  glorious  freedom  of  the  children  of  God.  And 
thus  did  Jesus  see  in  the  natural  life  the  likeness  of 
the  spiritual  life,  both  of  them  governed  by  the  same 
eternal  laws  of  the  divine  world-order,  revealing  them- 
selves in  nature  and  in  the  life  of  man,  only  in  different 
stages  of  their  development.     If  the  pious  man  finds 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  291 

everywhere  in  nature  the  signs  and  wonders  of  his  God  ; 
if  the  poet  sees  in  it  the  mirror  of  his  own  soul,  and 
hears  in  its  manifold  voices  the  echo  of  his  own  joys 
and  sorrows;  if  even  the  j)hilosopher  beholds  in  the 
starry  heavens  the  image  of  the  moral  order  of  the 
world  which  lives  in  his  heart, — all  this  is  not  mere  arbi- 
trary imagining,  but  it  is  the  proper  manifestation  of  the 
harmony  of  nature  and  spirit  as  eternally  grounded  in 
God.  The  rcconcihation  of  these  two  things,  long  since 
recognised  by  Christianity  in  prophetic  intuition,  and 
expressed  in  the  words  "  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos," 
has  been  raised  to  scientific  knowledge  in  the  modern 
doctrine  of  development. 

In  this  spiritualised  view  of  nature  lies  also  a  rich 
compensation  for  the  loss  of  the  supernatural  miracles, 
which  undoubtedly  have  no  longer  any  place  in  a 
world  of  continuous  development  in  conformity  with 
law.     Goethe  has  said  that 

"  Miracle  is  faith's  own  clearest  child." 

And  he  is  right;  for  miracle  is  for  the  childish  view 
of  the  world  the  most  natural  expression  of  the  con- 
viction that  the  power  of  God  reigns  throughout  the 
world  and  controls  it.  So  long  as  the  divine  omnipo- 
tence is  still  represented  in  a  natural  fashion  as  an 
individual  cause  along  with  and  above  other  causes, 
the  religious  consciousness  clothes  itself  in  the  re- 
presentation of  individual  miraculous  operations  which 


292  PHILOSOPHY   OF  RELIGION. 

break  tlirouGfh  the  familiar  course  of  nature.     Yet  the 
boundary  between  miracles  and  nature  is  still  a  shift- 
ing one  so  long  as  the  conformity  of  nature  to  law 
is  not  yet  clearly  known.     It  is  with  this  knowledge 
that  miracle  first  ceases  to  be  a  mere  extraordinary 
occurrence,   and   becomes   an    absolutely   supernatural 
miracle  contrary  to  law.      But   as    soon   as   the   idea 
has  obtained  this  significance,  it  is  no  longer  tenable 
by  any  logical  thinking,  as  all  the  philosophers  since 
Spinoza  have  acknowledged.      But  even  the  religious 
faith,  if  it  rightly  understands  itself,  has  no  interest  in 
maintaining  the  supernaturalist  conception  of  miracle. 
Schleiermacher   has    strikingly  remarked   that  in   his 
judgment  it  cannot  be  seen  how  the  divine  omnipo- 
tence should  show  itself  greater  in  the  interruptions 
of  the  connection  of  nature  than  in  the  unchangeable 
course   of    it,    which   in    fact   also   rests    upon    divine 
arrangement.      Through    every    absolute    miracle    the 
whole  connection  of  nature,  both  forwards  and  back- 
wards,  would    be   destroyed,    and    the    conception   of 
nature  itself  abolished ;  the  divine  activity  would  be- 
come an  unordered   magical    mode  of  working ;    God 
would  be  co-ordinated  with  finite  causes,  and  thereby 
even  be  made  finite.     On  the  other  hand,  when  it  is 
said  as  a  defence  of  miracles  that  they  are  a  sign  of 
the  livinguess  and   freedom  of  God,  it  appears  to  be 
supposed   that    God   is   usually   unliving   and   unfree, 
and    comes    only    in    the    rare    exceptional    cases    of 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  293 

miracles  to  free  life  and  exercise  of  power;  but  this 
is  precisely  what  a  decided  faith  in  the  omnipresent 
and  continually  active  divine  government  of  the  world 
cannot  possibly  admit.  Besides,  it  would  manifestly 
contradict  the  divine  unchangeableness  if  He  should 
work  now  according  to  order  and  again  not  according 
to  order,  now  in  founding  and  again  in  annulling  the 
order  of  the  world.  And  in  particular,  as  we  have 
recognised  the  order  of  nature  as  the  revelation  of  the 
divine  omnipotence,  we  cannot  establish  such  an  op- 
position between  the  one  and  the  other  as  that  God 
would  be  fettered  or  limited  by  the  order  of  nature, 
and  could  now  and  again  feel  a  need  to  break  through 
or  limit  this  fetter.  As  little  as  God  is  confined 
within  limits  by  the  moral  order  of  the  world,  just 
as  little  is  He  so  limited  by  the  natural  order.  Both 
are  in  fact  posited  wholly  and  equally  by  His  will, 
and  are  revelations  of  His  eternal  Logos — a  violation 
of  which  would  therefore  be  a  self-contradiction  of 
God,  which  is  excluded  by  His  eternal  perfection. 
And  as  miracle  contradicts  the  right  conception  of 
God,  so  does  it  also  contradict  the  conception  of 
Nature  as  the  connection  of  causes  and  effects  in 
conformity  with  law.  Nor  can  appeal  to  our  unac- 
quaintedness  with  the  individual  laws  of  nature  alter 
anything  in  this  position ;  for  a  process  which  did  not 
correspond  to  our  known  laws  of  nature,  but  which 
was  to  be  explained  from  other  laws  of  nature  still 


294  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

unknown  to  ns  at  the  time,  would  on  that  account 
not  be  a  real  miracle,  a  supernatural  occurrence  and 
object  of  faith,  but  would  be  a  problem  of  natural 
science,  and  therefore  not  of  any  direct  religious  sig- 
nificance. Xor  can  auy  valid  argument  be  adduced 
from  reference  to  the  "  elasticity  of  the  laws  of  nature." 
The  laws  themselves  are  not  elastic,  but  are  inviolable 
necessities  of  working  under  given  conditions.  Wher- 
ever an  expected  effect  does  not  or  does  not  completely 
appear,  we  there  assume  as  self-evident  that  collateral 
causes  concurred  with  the  principal  causes,  and  that 
these  checked  or  modified  its  operation ;  but  even  this 
check  still  takes  place  always  according  to  determinate 
and  calculable  laws.  When,  for  example,  the  astrono- 
mer Leverrier  perceived  deviations  in  the  path  of  the 
planet  Uranus  which  could  not  be  explained  from  the 
positions  of  the  planets  hitherto  known,  he  did  not 
satisfy  himself  somehow  with  the  assumption  of  elastic 
laws  of  nature,  but  he  thought  that  the  cause  of  the 
deviations  lay  in  the  influence  of  a  planet  not  yet 
discovered  at  the  time,  the  approximate  place  of  which 
he  accordingly  determined ;  and  this  then  led  to  the 
discovery  of  the  planet  Neptune.  Were  the  laws  of 
nature  "elastic" — i.e.,  did  their  working  vary  in  an 
accidental  and  groundless  way  —  then  there  would 
neither  be  possible  an  exact  knowledge  of  nature  nor 
a  sure  mode  of  action  on  the  ground  of  the  known 
laws  of  nature.     With  such  a  view  we  should  be  trans- 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  295 

ported  out  of  the  real  world,  in  which  the  order  of 
events  happens  in  accordance  with  law,  into  the  fan- 
tastic world  of  fables  and  magic,  where  we  should  lose 
all  our  bearings  both  theoretical  and  practical. 

If  we  must  accordingly  deny  the  reality  of  miracles 
in  the  strict  super-naturalistic  sense  of  the  word,  we 
cannot  escape  from  the  question  how  we  are  to  explain 
the  rise  and  significance  of  the  belief  in  miracle  in 
religion  ?  Here,  of  course,  it  would  not  be  in  place 
to  give  an  exhaustive  answer  to  this  question,  which 
would  lead  us  deep  into  the  labyrinth  of  historical 
investigation.  I  should  like  to  give  only  a  few  sug- 
gestive hints  whicli  seem  fitted  for  the  elucidation  of 
the  religious  view  of  the  world.  Miraculous  legends 
arise  in  a  twofold  way — partly  out  of  the  idealising 
of  the  real,  and  partly  out  of  the  realising  of  the  ideal. 
Every  occurrence,  through  whatever  natural  causes  it 
is  to  be  explained,  may  obtain  for  the  religious  judg- 
ment the  significance  of  a  "  sign  "  or  proof  of  the  world- 
governing  power,  wisdom,  justice,  or  goodness  of  God, 
This  ideal  significance,  which  the  real  cause  does  not 
at  all  exclude,  rests  upon  the  subjective  interpretation 
of  the  occurrence,  which  interpretation  is  not  arbitrary 
but  describes  the  impression  which  the  occurrence 
made  upon  the  religious  sense  of  the  perceiver.  But 
again,  it  is  quite  conceivable  on  psychological  grounds 
that  occurrences  which  have  made  a  deep  and  lasting 
impression   not   merely  on  individuals   but  on  whole 


296  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

circles  of  religiously  excited  men,  become  involuntarily 
idealised,  even  on  the  occasion  of  their  being  perceived 
by  the  first  eyewitnesses,  and  still  more  in  their  recol- 
lection of  them.  That  is  to  say,  the  features  of  the 
reality  which  are  not  essential,  or  which  disturb  the 
ideal  impression,  are  suppressed,  and  the  significant 
elevating  features  are  heightened  above  the  measure 
of  the  reality;  or  the  intermediate  members  of  an 
operation  which  withdraw  themselves  from  the  notice 
of  the  observer  are  suppressed,  and  a  supernatural 
power  is  put  into  the  place  of  the  natural  causal  con- 
nection. Thus  arise  the  relative  miraculous  histories, 
in  which  a  real  historical  background  is  to  be  pre- 
supposed, but  which  was  overlaid  with  mythical 
accessories  by  the  idealising  fantasy.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  the  numberless  half  -  historical  and  half  - 
poetical  "  legends "  in  the  history  of  religion  may 
have  arisen.  But  the  religious  spirit  idealises  not 
merely  real  occurrences  of  the  external  world ;  it  also 
produces  of  its  own  spontaneity  ideas  and  ideals  to 
which  nothing  real  in  the  outer  world  corresponds, 
but  in  which  only  inner  living  experiences  of  the 
pious  soul,  its  struggles  and  triumphs,  its  beliefs 
and  hopes,  are  brought  to  expression.  These  ideas 
are  now  involuntarily  invested  by  the  fantasy  in 
symbolical  images  which  are  taken  from  the  external 
world,  but  which,  because  they  serve  to  give  expression 
to   a  supersensible   ideal,  must  themselves  consist  of 


IDEALISM  AND  NATURALISM.  297 

supernatural  processes.  Thus  are  formed  the  purely 
ideal  nairacle-legends  which  have  no  external  reality 
as  their  foundation,  but  in  which  only  inner  pious 
experiences,  asj)irations,  and  hopes  of  the  soul  find  a 
symbolical  figurative  expression.  Yet  it  must  be  care- 
fully borne  in  mind  that  the  religious  fantasy,  in  pro- 
ducing such  poetic  symbolical  legends,  is  not  in  the 
habit  of  distinguishing,  nor  can  distinguish,  between 
the  ideal  truth  and  its  sensible  investment.  It  becomes 
conscious  of  the  ideal  truth,  not  in  a  purely  spiritual 
form  and  in  abstract  conceptions,  but  only  in  the 
sensible  form  of  poetic  intuition;  and  therefore  it 
believes  in  the  reality  of  the  miraculous  history  pro- 
duced by  itself,  with  the  same  immediate  certainty 
with  which  it  is  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  religious 
idea  contained  in  it.  The  history  of  all  the  higher 
religions,  and  in  particular  of  Christianity,  is  rich  in 
examples  of  such  miraculous  histories,  in  which  the 
historical  understanding  can  perceive  nothing  but  a 
poetic  realising  of  religious  ideas.  But  in  thus  ex- 
plaining the  rise  of  these  narratives  out  of  psycho- 
logical conditions  and  motives  of  the  religious  spirit  of 
individuals  and  communities,  we  are  far  from  that 
iconoclastic  rationalism  which  combated  miracles  from 
an  intellectual  fanaticism,  and  made  them  contemp- 
tible, because  it  was  not  able  to  transport  itself  into 
the  religious  consciousness  of  past  times.  It  is  just 
the   doctrine   of   development  which   is   able   to   heal 


298  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

again  the  wounds  which  it  inflicts  upon  simple  faith ; 
for  it  teaches  us  that  even  the  highest  spiritual  truths 
can  develop  themselves  only  gradually  in  the  human 
consciousness,  and  that  it  is  a  condition  belonging  to 
the  laws  of  this  development,  that  the  spiritual  invests 
•itself  at  first  in  a  sensible  vesture,  and  only  gradually 
frees  itself  from  this  disguise.  Whoever  has  once 
apprehended  this  law  is  as  far  removed  from  wishing 
to  destroy  the  husk  prematurely  before  the  fruit  has 
ripened,  as  from  desiring  to  defend  the  shell  as  a  thing 
for  ever  necessary  and  not  to  be  meddled  with.  To 
the  matured  faith  the  world  itself  is  the  one  great 
miracle  of  the  successive  realising  of  the  divine  ideal ; 
and  therefore  such  faith  honours  in  all  miracle-legends 
the  beautiful  symbols  of  the  one  great  miracle  of  the 
divine  government  of  the  world  and  of  the  education 
of  humanity,  that  heavenly  treasure  which  mankind 
could  not  hide  otherwise  than  in  earthen  vessels.  Thus 
for  us  too  the  words  of  Goethe  hold  true,  that 

"  Miracle  is  faith's  own  dearest  child." 


LECTUEE    X. 

THE   EELIGIOUS   VIEW    OF   THE   WOELD. 
77.  OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM. 

What  is  the  origin  of  evil  ?  wlience  has  it  come  ?  This 
question  has  ever  moved  mankind,  and  it  has  been  a 
leading  motive  in  the  formation  of  religious  and  philo- 
sophical theories.  We  may  divide  the  answers  to  this 
question  into  three  classes :  (1)  E  vil  has  been  referred 
back  to  an  extra-divine  principle — namely,  either  to 
one  or  many  evil  spirits,  or  to  fate,  or  to  matter — at 
all  events  to  a  principle  limiting  the  divine  power ;  (2) 
it  has  been  referred  to  a  want  or  defect  in  the  Deity 
Himself,  either  to  His  imperfect  wisdom  or  imperfect 
goodness ;  (3)  it  has  been  referred  to  human  culpability, 
either  to  a  universal  imperfection  of  human  nature  or 
to  particular  transgressions  of  the  first  men. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  in  the  nature-religions 
the  beneficial  and  prejudicial  operations  of  nature  were 
ascribed  to  heterogeneous   causes,   and  that    the    evil 


300  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

malevolent  Gods  and  spirits  were  opposed  to  those  that 
were  good  and  beneficent.  This  dualism  is  found  in 
some  form  in  all  nature-religions  ;  the  relationship  of  the 
evil  world  of  spirits  to  the  good,  and  the  significance  of 
the  former  for  man,  shaped  itself  very  differently  in  the 
different  religions,  according  to  the  more  optimistic  or 
more  pessimistic  disposition  or  mood  of  the  peoples  in 
question.  In  the  case  of  savage  tribes  under  unfavour- 
able conditions  of  life,  such  as  the  African  negroes,  or 
in  the  case  of  half-civilised  races  which  were  mal- 
treated by  secular  or  priestly  tyranny,  like  the  Mexi- 
cans or  the  Indian  (^liva-worshippers,  or  even  in  the 
case  of  the  medieval  Christians,  the  pessimistic  mood 
predominates  so  much  that  their  religion  is  more  an 
agony  of  terror  before  the  bad  God  than  worship  of 
the  good  God.  The  Egyptians  and  Western  Semites 
thought  less  pessimistically,  but  always  still  badly 
enough  of  the  power  of  the  bad  principle.  In  the  cult 
of  Osiris,  of  Adonis,  Sandon,  and  Melkarth,  the  two 
hostile  principles  stand  side  by  side  on  such  a  footing 
of  equality  that  in  the  circle  of  the  year  alternately 
the  one  and  the  other  conquers  without  a  final  victory 
being  ever  reached,  and  this  is  the  purely  naturalistic 
view  of  the  world  as  void  of  history  and  purposeless. 

Among  the  Iranians  and  Persians  the  hard  struggle 
for  existence  which  was  forced  upon  them,  by  their 
geographical  and  historical  situation,  is  likewise  re- 
flected in  their  dualistic  heightening  of  the  universal 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  301 

Indo-Germanic  opposition  of  spirits  contrasted  as  light 
and  dark,  beneficial  and  prejudical.  The  concentrating 
of  the  latter  into  one  personal  head  in  Angromainyu 
(Ahriman),  who  is  almost  on  a  footing  of  equality  with 
Ahuramazda,  was  perhaps  a  consequence  of  the  moral- 
ising of  the  old  Iranian  nature-religion  by  Zarathustra. 
Yet  this  dualism  is  not  an  absolute  one,  as  the  victory 
of  Ahura  is  hoped  for  at  the  end  of  the  world.  Till 
then  his  worshippers  have  to  take  an  active  part  in 
the  struggle  against  the  hostile  kingdom  of  spirits,  by 
the  exercise  of  all  religious  and  civil  virtues.  Civil 
m.orality  holds  good  as  an  essential  means  for  the  ful- 
filment of  the  religious  purpose,  the  victory  of  Ahura 
over  Ahriman ;  but  both  this  end  and  means  still  move 
essentially  on  the  ground  of  the  natural  interests  of 
the  people ;  Ahura's  honour  is  identical  with  the  lord- 
ship of  the  Persian  state.  Corresponding  to  the  rigid 
organisation  and  the  martial  spirit  of  the  Persian 
military  monarchy  is  the  concentration  of  the  hostile 
spirit-hosts  in  the  personal  heads — Ahura  and  Ahriman. 
Eeflection  is  not  yet  directed  to  the  fate  of  individuals 
in  distinction  from  the  whole  of  the  people,  or  to  the 
discrepancy  between  virtue  and  happiness  ;  and  thus 
the  system  still  lacks  the  motives  for  the  individual 
deepening  of  the  religious  view  of  the  world. 

The  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  time  are  the  classical 
example  of  naive  youthful  optimism.  So  much  the 
more  instructive  is  the  sudden  dialectical  change  and 


302  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

transition  which  is  to  be  observed  in  their  case  (as  in 
that  of  the  ethnologically  related  Indians),  from  the 
optimistic  into  the  pessimistic  mood  of  life  and  view 
of  the  world.  To  no  nation  had  the  terrestrial  life 
taken  shape  with  such  cheerful  and  sunny  radiance  as 
to  the  Greek  in  the  youthful  days  of  its  historical 
existence.  The  Greek  mythology  had  transfigured  the 
world  into  an  idyl,  in  which  Gods  and  men  conversed 
with  each  other  like  beings  of  kindred  nature.  The 
Gods  of  this  poetic  idyl  were  the  ideal  forms  of  man, 
not  because  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  perfectness  of 
their  being,  but  in  virtue  of  the  perfect  beauty  and 
inexhaustible  fulness  of  their  sensuous  enjoyment  of 
life.  The  stage  on  which  Gods  and  men  thus  met  was 
formed  by  those  regions  of  the  terrestrial  world  that 
lay  under  the  sun's  fairest  glow.  Yet  no  nation  has 
in  the  end  so  completely  transformed  its  view  of  the 
worth  of  life  as  the  Greek  nation  did.  The  Greece 
that  ends  in  the  religious  speculation  of  Neo-Py- 
thagoreanism  and  Neo-Platonism  regarded  the  same 
world  which  had  once  appeared  to  it  so  full  of  joy  and 
light,  as  a  place  of  darkness  and  error,  and  the  earthly 
existence  as  a  time  of  probation  which  cannot  be 
quickly  enough  passed  through.  The  beginning  of  this 
turn  of  view  lay  far  back  ;  it  may  almost  be  found 
already  in  Hesiod's  description  of  the  ages  ever  be- 
coming worse.  The  more,  then,  the  poets  and  thinkers 
of  the  classic  time  of  Greece  rose  to  the  thought  of  the 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  303 

moral  order  of  the  world,  so  much  the  more  did  their 
observation  of  the  misrelation  between  fate  and  guilt 
become  to  them  a  painful  riddle,  wdiich  was  not  solved, 
but  only  made  more  acute,  by  the  popular  belief  in  fate 
or  in  the  envy  of  the  Gods.  In  the  case  of  Sophocles 
especially  every  tragedy  was  a  new  exhibition  of  this 
mystery  of  the  world,  a  new  question  raised  as  to  the 
unintelligible  rule  of  the  Gods.  Sophocles  expressed 
his  own  doubt  of  the  justice  of  the  world  in  the  words 
of  Antigone :  "  How  can  I,  in  my  wretchedness,  still 
look  to  the  Gods  ?  whom  can  I  invoke  as  a  helper,  as 
an  ally,  seeing  that  I  have  drawn  upon  myself  the 
curse  of  godlessness  by  my  fear  of  the  Gods  ? "  These 
doubts  sought  at  first  their  solution  in  the  idea  of 
retribution  in  the  world  beyond,  by  which  Hades, 
hitherto  thought  of  as  indifferent,  was  differentiated 
into  places  of  reward  and  punishment.  But  in  the 
same  measure  in  which  the  life  in  the  future  world 
gained  in  interest  and  worth,  the  life  in  the  present 
world  lost  value.  This  is  already  distinctly  betrayed 
in  the  words  of  Antigone  when  she  says  that  she  has 
to  give  more  heed  to  the  departed,  with  whom  she 
will  always  be  in  future,  than  to  those  of  this  world. 
These  moods  and  views,  which  were  pre-eminently 
cherished  in  the  cult  of  the  mysteries,  were  fully 
carried  out  after  Socrates  by  the  idealistic  philosophy. 
Plato  taught  that  the  terrestrial  world  is  only  a 
shadowy  and  deformed  copy  of  the  world  of  ideas,  and 


304  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

that  our  body  is  a  prison,  out  of  which  the  soul,  which 
springs  from  above,  has  to  raise  itself  to  the  world  of 
ideas. '   The  earthly  life  had,  for  this  thinker,  only  the 
significance  of  a  preparation  for  the  better  life  in  the 
world  beyond.     The  Stoics  likewise,  although  starting 
from  other  theoretical  presuppositions,  yet  came  prac- 
tically to  a  quite  similar   estimation    of   the  natural 
goods  of  life.     The  wise  man,  as  they  taught,  can  only 
find  the  highest  good  of  full  rest  of  soul  in  libera- 
tion from  all  natural  passions,  in  the  mortification  of 
the  heart,  and  indifference  to  all  cares  and  joys.     The 
rational  self-consciousness  returns  here  into  itself  from 
all  that  is  external  as  from  something  alien  and  hostile, 
in  order  to  find,  in  its  own  pure  inwardness  and  free- 
dom, harmony  with  itself  and  with  the  absolute  world- 
reason,  and  therewith  the  highest  good.     But  in  this 
proud  self-glorification  and  depreciation  of  the  external 
world,  the  solitary  Ego  empties  itself  of  all  definite 
content,  even  of  all  moral  values  and  ends ;  there  re- 
mains only  the  abstract  self,  which  is  null  and  worth- 
less  in   its   emptiness.      Hence    this    world -despising 
pessimism  of  the    Stoics   is   always   on   the   point   of 
despising  and  throwing  away  even  the  individual's  own 
life,  as  equally  worthless  with  the  rest  of  the  world.    As 
the  world  was  formerly  negated  for  the  sake  of  the  self, 
so  even  the  self  is  at  last  negated  along  with  the  rest  of 
the  world.     In  such  absolute  pessimism  and  illusionism 
did  the  original  absolute  optimism  of  the  Greeks  end. 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  305 

Quite  analogous,  but  still  more  logical  and  extreme, 
in  the  case  of  the  Indians,  was  the  passage  from  the 
original  optimism  of  the  deification  of  nature  into  the 
final  absolutely  pessimistic  negation  of  the  world.  Poli- 
tics, religion,  and  philosophy  here  contributed  in  equal 
parts  to  bring  the  Indian  people,  which  had  once  been 
full  of  the  joy  of  life  and  activity,  to  contempt  of  the 
world  and  to  disgust  of  life.  Their  civil  life  was  with- 
out lasting  and  great  ends — a  constant  change  of  petty 
tyrants,  who  split  up  society  by  the  barriers  of  the  castes, 
without  national  common  feeling.  Nor  did  the  world 
beyond  furnish  here,  as  in  the  Greek  mysteries,  a  scant 
comfort  for  the  sad  life  of  the  present,  as  the  doctrine 
of  the  transmigration  of  souls  threatened  to  prolong 
the  circulation  of  wretched  existence  without  end. 
The  Brahmanic  philosophy  had  always  been  strong  only 
in  the  abstracting  and  resolving  of  all  that  is  particular 
into  an  empty  universality,  whose  highest  is  Brahma. 
Instead  of  conceiving  and  ordering  the  chaos  of  exist- 
ence under  a  supreme  principle,  it  sublimated  it  into  an 
All-One,  of  which  nothing  can  be  further  said  than  that 
it  is  the  alone  existing  being,  while  the  world  of  the 
particular  is  empty  seeming  and  deception.  From  this 
speculative  negation  of  the  world  Gautama  Buddha 
then  drew  its  practical  and  popular  consequence.  All 
life,  according  to  Buddha,  is  suffering ;  for  it  is  desire 
of  the  soul  for  goods  that  are  naught,  and  which  by 
their  transitoriness  prepare  a  constant  illusion.      Hence 

VOL.  I.  u 


306  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

man  has  to  make  himself  free  from  all  desiring,  to  be- 
come wishless  and  hopeless,  in  order  to  find  peace,  rest, 
Nirvdna.  But  with  this  evacuation  of  all  the  content 
of  life,  man  at  last  also  loses  himself.  This  conse- 
quence, which  the  Stoics  occasionally  drew  by  practical 
suicide,  Buddha  drew  as  a  demand  in  principle,  not 
indeed  for  bodily  but  for  spiritual  self-mortification. 
Whoever  would  become  free  from  the  evil  of  the  illusion 
of  the  external  world,  must  at  last  also  become  free 
from  the  fundamental  evil,  from  the  illusion  of  one's 
own  existence.  All  willing  and  thinking  must  die  out 
and  expire  from  want  of  spiritual  nourishment,  and 
then  the  peace  of  the  Nirvana  first  takes  up  its  abode, 
a  peace  which  no  breath  of  evil  any  more  affects.  This 
is  the  most  radical  pessimism  thinkable ;  but  it  contains 
at  the  same  time  its  own  reductio  ad  dbsurdum.  For 
it  is  a  self-contradiction  that  the  self-conscious  Ego 
should  think  itself  as  not  being,  and  should  will  as  not 
willing.  Thus  we  have  seen  how,  among  the  Greeks 
and  Indians,  the  original  optimism  of  a  crude  idolatry 
of  the  world  turned  round  at  last  in  a  quite  similar  way 
into  an  extreme  pessimism,  which  again  shows  itself  to 
be  untenable,  because  it  cannot  be  carried  out  without 
self-contradiction.  With  this,  history  has  itself  already 
pronounced  the  judgment  that  neither  upon  the  one  nor 
upon  the  other  side  alone  can  the  truth  be  found. 

But  history  has  also  shown  the  positive  overcoming 
of  both  errors  in  the  development  of  the  religion  of 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  307 

Israel.  This  people  also  started  from  a  simple  optimism. 
"  God  saw  all  that  He  had  made,  and  behold  it  was 
very  good ; "  and  He  gave  over  the  earth  and  what  is 
in  it  to  men,  that  they  should  govern  it.  In  particular, 
God  chose  the  people  of  Israel  to  be  His  own  people, 
and  He  concluded  a  covenant  with  it  with  mutual  obli- 
gation. Israel  was  to  be  God's  holy  people,  and  in  con- 
sideration of  this  the  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan 
and  all  earthly  prosperity  was  promised  to  it.  This  idea 
of  the  covenant  of  God  ruled  the  historical  pragmatism 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel.  From  this  point  of  view 
they  explained  the  evils  from  which  their  people  had 
often  to  suffer  as  just  punishments  of  God  for  the 
unfaithfulness  of  Israel,  but  yet  at  the  same  time  as 
means  for  the  purification  of  the  people,  in  order  to 
lead  it  towards  its  ideal  of  a  holy  people  of  God.  The 
basis  of  their  ethical  monotheism  forbade  them  to  think 
of  a  blind  fate,  or  of  the  envy  of  the  Deity.  But  this 
explanation  of  evils  from  the  retributive  justice  of  God 
sufficed  only  so  long  as  the  religious  reflection  was 
limited  to  the  people  as  a  whole.  On  the  other  hand, 
as  soon  as  the  postulate  of  just  retribution  was  applied 
to  individuals,  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  seeing  that 
it  was  the  most  just — those  who  participated  least  in 
the  guilt  of  the  people,  nay,  even  those  who  had  re- 
sisted it  most  staunchly — who  had  often  nevertheless 
to  suffer  most,  while  the  unjust  enjoyed  good  fortune. 
With  this  position  there  was  also  raised  for  the  Jewish 


308  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

piety  the  question  of  the  theodicy,  which  on  the  hasis 
of  ethical  monotheism  has  its  peculiar  difficulty  — 
namely,  How  is  the  experienced  misrelation  of  morality 
and  fate  to  he  made  to  tally  with  the  government  of  an 
almighty  and  a  just  God  ?  The  author  of  the  Book  of 
Job  has  struggled  with  this  problem,  but  he  was  un- 
able to  solve  it.  The  explanation  of  the  friends  of  Job, 
that  his  misfortunes  pointed  to  hidden  guilt,  is  declared 
to  be  false,  seeing  that  God  Himself  recognises  the 
innocence  of  Job.  But  the  question  as  to  the  ground 
of  his  misfortunes  is  simply  smitten  down  in  the  poet- 
ical conclusion  as  unjustified  and  insoluble  for  the 
human  understanding :  "  I  will  lay  mine  hand  upon  my 
mouth  and  be  silent,  for  these  things  are  too  high  for 
me,  and  cannot  be  understood."  In  the  narrative  con- 
clusion, on  the  other  hand,  Job  is  at  last  richly  indem- 
nified by  reparation  of  all  his  losses.  And  thus  the 
narrator  falls  back  again  into  the  old  theory  of  retri- 
bution, whose  insufficiency,  because  of  its  contrariety 
to  experience,  had  just  been  the  occasion  of  the  whole 
raising  of  the  problem.  "While  in  the  Book  of  Job 
doubt  still  struggles  with  faith,  in  the  Book  of  Ecclesi- 
astes  despair  of  the  just  government  of  the  world  is  the 
ruling  mood :  "  All  things  come  alike  to  all :  there  is 
one  event  to  the  righteous,  and  to  the  wicked ;  to  the 
good  and  to  the  clean,  and  to  the  unclean.  So  I  re- 
turned, and  considered  all  the  oppressions  that  are  done 
under  the  sun ;  and  behold  the  tears  of  such  as  were 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  309 

oppressed,  aud  they  had  no  comforter ;  and  on  the  side 
of  their  oppressors  there  was  power.  I  have  seen  all 
the  works  that  are  done  under  the  sun ;  and,  behold,  all 
is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,"  Amid  this  lamenta- 
tion of  the  present,  the  questioning  gaze  does  indeed 
direct  itself  to  the  world  beyond ;  but  here  too  it  ends 
with  anxious  doubt :  "  Who  knoweth  whether  the  spirit 
of  man  goeth  upward  ?  " 

Yet  with  such  hopeless  resignation  the  Jewish  piety 
could  not  stop  ;  for  its  essence  was  a  hopeful  idealism,  a 
trusting  in  the  faithfulness  and  righteousness  of  God, 
who  must  yet  at  last  lead  His  good  cause  and  that  of 
His  faithful  ones  to  victory,  although  the  way  to  this 
goal  leads  through  suffering.  During  the  suffering 
time  of  the  Exile,  when  the  most  pious  had  to  endure 
the  greatest  suffering,  yet  also  contributed  most  by 
their  patient  perseverance  to  the  salvation  and  establish- 
ment of  the  people,  there  was  formed  the  new  ideal 
of  the  "  pious  endurer "  (Anav),  who,  under  external 
debasement,  poverty,  and  oppression,  nevertheless 
ceases  not  to  wait  for  the  consolation  of  Israel,  and 
who  does  not  allow  himself  to  be  shaken  in  his  pious 
trust  in  God,  although  he  no  longer  himself  experiences 
external  prosperity.  The  inner  certainty  of  fellowship 
with  his  God  is  his  consolation  and  compensation  even 
in  continuing  external  misfortune :  "  Whom  have  I  in 
heaven  but  Thee  ?  and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that 
I  desire  besides  Thee.     My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth  : 


310  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

but  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart,  and  my  portion 
for  ever  "  (Ps.  Ixxiii.  25,  26).  Thvis  did  the  Jewish  piety 
purify  itself  in  the  case  of  individuals  in  the  fire  of 
affliction  from  the  dross  of  its  earthly  mercenariness,  and 
it  gained  in  its  internal  deepening  a  self-certainty  and 
satisfaction  which  was  independent  of  the  chance  of 
external  fatalities,  and  was  no  longer  exposed  to  doubt. 
It  is  true  that  it  was  indeed  always  only  but  a  few 
select  spirits  who  were  able  to  raise  themselves  to  such 
religious  idealism ;  and  even  for  them  the  hope  still 
stood  fast  that  the  cause  of  God  could  not  be  for  ever 
the  vanquished  one,  but  that  it  must  some  day  conquer 
even  in  the  external  world,  and  right  come  to  power 
and  dominion.  But  the  more  the  reality  appeared  to 
stand  in  contradiction  with  this  postulate,  so  much  the 
more  did  the  hope  of  a  miraculous  future,  when  it  was 
contrasted  with  the  present  course  of  the  world,  direct 
itself  towards  a  super-terrestrial  world  beyond,  to  a 
"  king;dom  of  the  Saints  "  coming  down  from  heaven  to 
earth,  in  the  glory  of  which  those  who  had  died  in  the 
intervening  time  should  also  obtain  their  share  by  their 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  Since  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees  the  Jewish  faith  rose  above  the  distress  of 
the  present  to  the  hope  of  a  transcendent  adjustment, 
which  transported  into  the  far  distance  its  original 
earthly  realism  and  optimism.  At  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, this  displacement  of  the  religious  ideal  into  a 
future   that  was  to  be  miraculously  established,  and 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  311 

which  did  not  naturally  cohere  with  the  present,  had 
the  consequence  that  now  the  present  appeared  always 
only  the  gloomier  in  contrast  to  this  high-flying  ideal 
representation  of  the  future.  The  ^  Apocalyptic  tran- 
scendence of  the  future  Messianic  age  had  corresponding 
to  it,  as  its  obverse  side,  the  dominion  of  the  realm  of 
demons  in  the  earthly  present. 

As  little  as  the  hope  of  a  resurrection,  had  the  fear 
of  demons  been  an  original  element  of  the  Hebrew 
religion.  Even  if  it  were  the  case  that  the  belief  in 
spirits  was  not  foreign  to  the  ancient  Hebrews,  it  had 
undoubtedly  nothing  to  do  with  the  Jahve-religion. 
There  was  iirst  formed  in  the  post-Exilian  time,  probably 
under  the  influence  of  the  Persian  dualism,  the  idea 
of  a  kingdom  of  impure  hostile  spirits  with  Satan  or 
Beelzebub  at  their  head.  In  Job  he  still  stands  among 
the  sons  of  God  as  the  accuser  of  the  pious,  but  yet 
strictly  subordinated  to  God.  According  to  1  Chronicles 
xxi.  1,  Satan  induced  David  to  undertake  the  fatal 
numbering  of  the  people  ;  the  author  of  which,  according 
to  the  earlier  notion  (2  Samuel  xxi  v.  1),  had,  however, 
been  God  Himself.  We  see  from  this  how  the  idea  of 
the  Devil  was  a  welcome  expedient  for  the  need  of  an 
advanced  religious  reflection,  to  put  God  out  of  relation 
to  the  evil  and  badness  of  the  world.  In  the  Apocry- 
phal and  Apocalyptic  writings  of  the  last  pre-Christian 
time,  the  demonology  occupies  always  larger  room.  The 
whole  of  heathenism  was  regarded  by  the  Jews  as  the 


312  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

sphere  of  the  dominion  of  the  demons ;  and  when  the 
heathen  empire  of  the  Eomans  reduced  the  Jewish 
people  also  under  its  sceptre,  Satan  ajDpeared  forthwith 
as  "  the  prince  of  this  world,"  to  whom  God  has  assigned 
the  present  world-age,  but  in  order  to  take  again  into 
His  hands  the  government  of  the  world  on  the  occasion 
of  the  miraculous  establishment  of  the  Messianic  king- 
dom in  the  new  age.  So  comfortless  and  godless  did 
the  actual  world  appear  to  the  Jews  of  the  last  century 
before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  that  they  could  see 
in  it  only  the  kingdom  of  Satan,  the  direct  opposite  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  which  on  that  very  account  was 
to  enter  into  existence  only  through  miraculous  catas- 
trophes. The  view  that  the  real  world  is  very  good, 
from  which  Israel  had  started  in  the  time  of  the 
prophets,  had  given  place  here  too,  not  less  than  with 
the  Greeks  and  Indians,  to  a  pessimistic  despair  of  the 
real  world.  Yet  what  distinguished  this  Jewish  pes- 
simism from  the  Greek  and  Indian  was  the  firm  hope 
that  the  misery  would  not  last  for  ever,  but  that  a  new 
better  world  would  soon  dawn,  in  which  God  would 
wipe  away  all  tears  from  the  eyes  of  the  pious. 

Christianity  also  started  from  this  same  pessimistic 
view  of  the  world,  but  it  made  it  the  foil  of  its  doctrine 
of  redemption  and  salvation.  It  did  not  weaken  the 
feeling  for  the  great  power  of  the  physical  and  moral 
evils  in  the  world,  but  it  put  in  ^^rospect  the  overcom- 
ing of  them  through  the  kingdom  of  God  which  is  dawn- 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  313 

ing,  and  it  set  its  forces  to  work.  Jesus  knew  by 
the  healing  power  of  His  word  over  those  who  were 
diseased  in  body  and  soul,  whom  He  also  regarded  as 
tormented  by  demons,  that  the  kingdom  of  God  had 
now  come  (Luke  xi.  20)  ;  that  a  stronger  One  had  come 
to  rule  over  Satan  and  his  kingdom,  who  would  bind 
him,  and  spoil  his  house.  He  saw  Satan  fall  like  light- 
ning from  heaven  (Luke  x.  IS) — that  is  to  say,  He  saw 
his  power  over  the  world  broken  by  the  force  of  the 
faith  which  in  full  surrender  to  God  gives  freedom 
from  the  power  of  men  and  demons  :  "  All  things  are 
possible  to  him  that  believeth."  Jesus  was  far  from 
the  shallow  optimism  which  ignores  the  power  of  the 
bad  and  expects  an  easy  victory  of  the  good  without  a 
struggle.  He  knew  that  suffering  was  His  own  lot  and 
that  of  His  followers  in  the  world ;  but  He  knew  also 
that  sufferings  borne  in  pious  obedience  to  God  become 
means  for  the  victory  of  the  good,  for  the  salvation  of 
the  individual  and  of  the  whole  :  "  For  whosoever  will 
save  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  but  whosoever  shall  lose  his 
life  for  my  sake  and  the  Gospel's,  the  same  shall  save 
it.  For  even  the  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for 
many  "  (Mark  viii.  35,  x.  45).  In  this  certainty  of  faith 
that  even  the  worst  evils  of  the  world  are  at  last  only 
means  for  the  good  purposes  of  God,  lay  the  victory 
which  has  overcome  the  world — which  in  the  first  place 
overcame  it  internally,  in  that  it  made  the  pious  man 


314  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

free  from  the  terror  of  the  world,  and  made  him  strong 
for  the  struggle  against  all  godless  things.  And  the 
same  mood  passes  through  the  whole  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  especially  through  the  Epistles  of  the  apostle 
Paul.  "We  know  that  all  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God.  If  God  be  for  us,  who 
can  be  against  us?  I  am  persuaded  that  neither 
death,  nor  life,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  God.  As  sorrowful,  yet 
always  rejoicing;  as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich;  as 
having  nothing,  and  yet  possessing  all  things  "  (Eomans 
viii.  28,  38  f.;  2  Cor.  vi.  10  f.)  This  is  the  fundamental 
mood  of  the  Christian  in  presence  of  the  evils  of  the 
world — as  far  removed  from  shallow  optimism,  which 
does  not,  or  will  not,  see  the  power  of  evil  and  bad- 
ness, and  to  which  much  frivolity  or  hardness  of  heart 
belongs,  as  from  the  despondent  pessimism  which  de- 
spairs of  the  victory  of  the  good  in  the  world,  and 
consequently  also  paralyses  the  power  for  earnest 
conflict  and  deadens  the  heart  in  dull  indifference. 

The  Christian  view  of  the  world  proves  itself  to  be 
the  true  view  also  by  the  fact  that  it  combines  the 
highest  idealism,  belief  in  the  world-governing  power 
of  the  good,  with  the  common-sense  realism  which  sees 
the  world  as  it  actually  is.  The  Christian  is  not  an 
abstract  idealist  who  in  visionary  optimism  holds  the 
world  simply  to  be  excellent,  all  that  is  actual  to  be 
rational,  and  even  evil  and  badness  to  be  mere  seem- 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  315 

ing,  or  a  shadow  fitted  for  beautifying  the  whole 
picture.  His  heart  is  not  so  liard  and  unfeeling  that 
he  does  not  feel  his  own  and  others'  suffering  as  real 
woe ;  his  conscience  is  not  so  obtuse  that  he  could 
approve  evil  and  see  peace  where  there  is  no  peace. 
On  the  contrary,  because  he  never  judges  men  and 
things  according  to  the  external  appearance,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  internal  reality,  he  perceives  wrong  and  error 
in  much  that  appears  to  others  as  right  and  good ;  his 
attitude  towards  reality  is  always  in  a  certain  respect 
critical  and  polemical,  because  he  measures  it  by  his 
ideal,  and  he  cannot  overlook  the  distance  of  the  actu- 
ality from  what  ought  to  be.  But  with  all  this,  to 
him  it  is  not  less  firmly  established  that  the  world,  in 
spite  of  all  its  imperfectness,  is  the  work  of  God,  the 
object  of  His  redeeming  love,  the  place  of  His  coming 
kingdom.  On  the  one  hand,  he  knows  that  we  are  not 
to  love  the  world  nor  what  is  in  it,  for  the  world  with 
its  fashion  passes  away ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
believes  that  God  has  loved  the  world  and  reconciled  it 
with  Himself, — that  all  is  from  God,  and  through  Him, 
and  to  Him !  In  this  wonderful  antinomy  lies  the 
enigma,  lies  the  strength  of  Christianity.  The  practical 
solution  of  this  enigma  was  indeed  always  present  in 
the  immediate  experience  of  the  pious  soul,  in  the  faith 
which  felt  God's  power  present  in  all  human  weakness, 
in  the  love  which  put  forth  its  hand  to  further  the 
divine  kingdom  upon  earth,  and   in  the  hope  which 


316  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

soared  over  the  afflictions  of  time  to  the  glory  which  is 
yet  to  be  revealed  in  us.  Nevertheless,  there  lay  in 
that  antinomy  a  problem  for  the  religious  reflection, 
the  solution  of  which  could  not  be  quite  satisfactorily 
attained  at  the  very  outset. 

In  the  primitive  Christianity  the  pessimistic  polemi- 
cal side  of  the  Christian  estimation  of  the  world 
strongly  predominated,  and  it  expressed  itself  in  an 
ascetic  attitude,  not  merely  towards  the  life  of  sense, 
but  also  towards  the  higher  life  of  the  world.  The 
primitive  Christianity  loosened  man  from  the  earthly 
bonds  and  interests  of  society,  from  family  and  country, 
from  law  and  State,  from  art  and  science,  by  showing 
him  his  true  home  in  heaven.  This  partly  arose  from 
the  historical  relationships  of  the  society  of  the  time, 
in  which  even  the  higher  human  endeavours  had  under- 
gone such  deep  moral  corruption  that  no  other  than  a 
polemical  attitude  towards  them  was  possible,  unless 
the  Christian  ideal  was  to  be  lowered  by  false  compro- 
mises. But  the  ground  of  the  world-denying  pessimism 
and  asceticism  of  the  primitive  Christianity  lay  partly 
also  in  the  abstract  supernaturalism  which  it  had  taken 
possession  of  as  an  inheritance  from  the  Jewish  Apoca- 
lyptic. For,  according  to  the  Apocalyptic  representa- 
tion of  the  kingdom  of  God,  that  kingdom  was  not  to 
srow  out  of  the  historical  life  of  man,  but  was  to  break 
its  continuity,  and  to  enter  into  existence  by  a  direct 
divine  intervention  from  heaven.    From  this  it  followed 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  317 

naturally  that  the  present  world,  up  to  the  coming  of 
Christ  and  His  heavenly  kingdom,  still  appeared  as  the 
mere  opposite  of  that  kingdom,  as  a  place  of  powers 
hostile  to  God.  Augustine  called  the  Eoman  empire  a 
civitas  diaholi;  and  the  whole  Greek  culture  was,  in 
the  eyes  of  Tertullian,  a  pompa  diaholi.  Thus  there 
was  continued  in  Christianity  the  dualist-pessimistic 
view  of  the  world  which  had  been  the  final  result  of 
the  ancient  development  of  civilisation,  and  this  view 
was  carried  forward  in  it  for  centuries.  Not  that  the 
specifically  Christian  truth  of  the  reconciliation  of  God 
and  of  the  world  had  on  that  account  been  forgotten ; 
but  it  was,  as  it  were,  hermetically  sealed  in  the 
mystery  of  its  dogma  and  worship.  To  the  real  world 
outside  of  the  Church  this  truth  did  not  hold  good  ;  for 
that  world  remained,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christians, 
after  as  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  God -forsaken 
and  governed  by  demons.  The  terror  of  the  devil  and 
diabolical  magic  grew  in  the  middle  ages  to  an  even 
more  morbid  height  than  it  had  ever  reached  in  the 
pre-Christian  world,  having  been  intensified  by  the 
struggle  of  the  Church  with  the  heathenism  outside  as 
well  as  within  its  boundaries,  and  by  the  amalgamation 
of  heresy  with  witchcraft,  in  connection  with  which  the 
Church  used  the  popular  superstition  as  a  weapon  for 
the  suppression  of  her  opponents. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  began  the  reaction  from 
this   dualistic  pessimistic  view   of   the  world,  and   it 


318  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

started  at  the  same  time  from  two  sides.  In  the  Ee- 
naissance  the  world  established  its  claim  to  the  inde- 
pendent worth  of  the  goods  of  civilisation  outside  of 
the  Church,  of  scientific  truth  and  artistic  beauty ;  in 
the  Reformation  Christianity  loosened  itself  from  its 
ecclesiastical  bonds  and  its  ascetic  enmity  to  the  world. 
The  gulf  between  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  world 
was  bridged  over  by  that  kingdom  being  no  longer 
limited  to  the  Church,  but  extended  to  the  moral  com- 
munity generally,  and  by  the  world  being  liberated 
from  the  ban  of  unholiness,  and  being  recognised  as 
the  nursery-ground  of  the  moral  goods  of  Christianity. 
Certainly  there  was  still  much  wanting  to  the  com- 
plete and  logical  carrying  through  of  this  view  of  the 
desecularising  and  reconciliation  of  the  world  with 
Christianity.  There  acted  as  a  hindrance  to  it  the 
continuing  authority  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  dogma 
with  its  abstract  supernaturalism,  whose  natural  con- 
sequence was  the  dualism  of  the  spiritual  and  the 
secular.  Besides  this,  the  medieval  terror  of  the 
devil  lasted  in  Protestantism  for  three  centuries,  and 
bore  its  evil  fruits  in  the  horrors  of  the  prosecutions 
of  witches.  It  was  the  second  Eenaissance  at  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  that  first  carried  out  the- 
oretically and  practically  the  reconciliation  of  spirit 
and  nature  which  had  begun  in  the  sixteenth  century; 
and  in  connection  with  it,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that 
the  recoil  from  the  ecclesiastical  supernaturalism  led 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  319 

at  first  to  a  half-heathen  naturalism  and  optimistic 
deification  of  the  world.  Eousseau's  preaching  of  the 
excellence  of  human  nature  and  of  the  return  to  the 
simplicity  of  the  state  of  nature  as  the  means  of  sal- 
vation from  all  evils,  found  everywhere  enthusiastic 
followers.  But  when  the  French  Kevolution  had  trans- 
lated this  theory  into  practice,  the  disillusion  was  the 
more  bitter  the  more  naive  the  enthusiasm  for  nature 
had  been.  Then  there  followed  after  the  optimism 
of  the  eighteenth  century  the  poetical  world-pain  of 
Byron,  which  Schopenhauer  has  raised  to  the  philoso- 
phical creed  of  pessimism. 

Certainly  one  is  justified  in  seeing  in  the  pessimistic 
philosophy  of  Schopenhauer  and  his  followers  a  pro- 
duct and  reflection  of  the  mood  of  the  age,  which,  dis- 
illusionised from  the  transcendental  Utopias  of  abstract 
idealism  and  sobered  down,  has  become  realistic  and 
resigned.  Nevertheless,  it  ought  not  to  be  overlooked 
that  this  philosophy  is  in  certain  respects  a  conse- 
quence of  the  Kantian  dualism,  which  held  the  good 
to  be  unattainable  and  the  true  to  be  incognisable. 
There  is,  according  to  Kant,  such  an  absolute  discord- 
ance between  reason  and  the  sensibility,  that  the  ideas 
of  the  pure  reason  only  entangle  the  understanding, 
which  is  bound  to  the  senses,  in  insoluble  dialectical 
contradictions,  and  that  the  moral  demands  of  reason 
find  themselves  in  eternal  conflict  with  the  actual 
desire  of  the  sensible   nature   of  man ;   so  that  duty 


320  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  inclination  can  never  go  together,  and  the  highest 
good  set  up  as  a  task  by  reason  must  always  be  only 
an  ideal  goal,  and  never  realised.  If  this  be  so,  it 
was  a  very  natural  inference  that  was  drawn  by  Scho- 
penhauer— namely,  that  the  substance  of  the  world  is 
the  irrational  will,  and  that  its  existence  is  therefore 
in  irreconcilable  discord  with  the  rational  idea  and  is 
consequently  an  evil,  before  whose  insuperable  power 
nothing  remains  to  us  but  the  resigned  "negation  of 
the  will  to  live,"  the  Buddhistic  Nirvana.  But  we  have 
already  seen  how  this  theory  led  in  the  Indian  philo- 
sophy itself  to  absurdity :  the  same  thing  may  be  here 
noticed  again  under  a  new  point  of  view.  If  all  our 
willing  is  an  effluence  of  the  irrational  world-will,  then 
all  our  purposive  conceptions  or  ideals  are  in  like 
manner  irrational,  have  therefore  no  claim  to  truth 
and  validity,  nor  can  they  be  applied  as  a  rule  for 
the  estimation  of  reality.  With  this,  however,  falls 
away  all  possibility  of  a  rational  estimation  of  reality ; 
and  consequently  Schopenhauer's  negative  judgment 
regarding  the  worth  of  the  world  becomes  also  ground- 
less and  arbitrary.  Or  conversely :  if  we  are  to  be  in 
a  position  to  pronounce  rational  judgments  (whatever 
be  their  issue)  concerning  the  worth  of  the  world, 
then  we  must  measure  it  by  an  ideal  conception  of 
whose  rational  truth  we  are  convinced ;  but  if  we  are 
able  to  form  rational  ideal  conceptions,  then  our  will- 
ing cannot  be  wholly  reasonless ;  but  if  there  is  reason 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  321 

in  our  willing,  which  is  a  weak  and  limited  effluence 
of  the  world-will,  there  must  also  surely  be  reason  in 
the  world-will ;  but  then  the  world,  as  a  product  of 
the  rational  world-will,  cannot  be  an  irrational  evil, 
but  must  be  a  means  for  the  realising  of  the  ideal, 
which  could  not  be  o?m'  purposive  thought,  unless  it 
were  also  the  primal  purposive  thought  of  the  world- 
will  itself,  and  therefore  the  final  cause  of  the  real. 
In  short,  pessimism  as  a  philosophy  breaks  to  pieces 
on  the  inner  contradiction  that  it  denies  the  ration- 
ality of  the  world  and  yet  assumes  the  rationality  of 
its  judging  about  the  world,  which  is  yet  also  a  con- 
stituent element  of  the  whole;  or  that  it  denies  the 
tendency  of  the  world  to  the  good,  and  yet  in  its  own 
forming  of  ideals  it  proves  actually  the  existence  and 
activity  of  that  very  tendency.  Hence  pessimism  as  a 
form  of  thought  always  appears  when  thinking  per- 
forms its  inexorable  criticism  on  the  objective  world, 
but  the  subject  is  so  completely  merged  in  this 
critical  process  that  it  forgets  itself  therein,  and  does 
not  perceive  that  it  already  has  ioi  itself  what  it  seeks 
and  misses  without;  nay  more,  that  its  seeking  it  is 
itself  a  sign  of  the  hidden  existence  of  what  is  sought 
for,  and  consequently  the  guarantee  also  of  its  coming 
to  be  found. 

The  rising  of  this  consciousness  was  the  salvation 
which  Christianity  brought  to  the  pessimistically  world- 
weary  humanity,  with  its  message  that  the  kingdom  of 

VOL.  I.  X 


3-22  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

God  is  not  merely  a  future  far-off  ideal,  but  that  it  is 
already  a  present  reality  within,  in  the  hearts  of  the 
children  of  God.  The  opposition  of  reality  and  Ideal, 
of  the  world  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  indeed  not 
denied,  yet  it  is  no  longer  the  whole  truth,  but  only 
one  side  of  it, — the  starting-point,  which  is  to  be,  and 
can  be,  raised  to  unity.  But  the  theoretical  mediation 
of  the  two  sides  contained  in  the  Christian  principle 
was  not  yet  possible  under  the  presuppositions  of  the 
Apocalyptic  supernaturalism.  For  us  it  becomes  pos- 
sible through  the  conception  of  development,  which 
enables  us  to  know  in  the  real  the  becoming  of  the 
ideal,  and  in  the  ideal  the  final  cause  of  the  real. 
These  two  things  stand  equally  established  to  us, — 
that  the  kingdom  of  God,  or  the  ideal  of  the  universal 
highest  good,  transcends  all  bounded  reality,  and  yet 
that  the  reality  always  already  participates  in  it  in 
some  measure,  in  so  far  as  it  contains  the  germs  out 
of  which  the  Ideal  is  to  develop  itself.  From  this 
point  of  view  even  the  evil  of  the  world  loses  its 
painful  sting,  and  transforms  itself  into  a  co-operating 
means  for  the  bringing  forth  of  the  good. 

That  the  good  can  only  develop  itself  in  conflict  with 
its  opposite,  and  consequently  at  the  price  of  pain, 
can  be  most  clearly  recognised  when  we  reflect  upon 
the  personal  life.  If  man  is  to  attain  to  a  morally 
good  will  corresponding  to  the  rational  order  of  the 
universe,  the  natural  impulses  must  be  restrained  and 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  323 

overcome  in  their  immediate  exercise,  and  made  sub- 
ject to  the  higher  end.  Without  the  struggle  with 
one's  own  nature,  without  the  pain  of  self-conquest, 
no  virtue  is  possible.  'O  fir)  Sapeh  dvOpcoTro^  ov  'jraL- 
heverat.  Nor  is  this  to  be  accomplished  merely  by  a 
single  heroic  act  of  renunciation  of  the  self-will,  but 
the  moral  ideal  demands  daily  new  labour  upon  our- 
selves and  the  sacrifice  of  self-subdual.  With  every 
step  in  the  progress  of  moral  insight  grow  also  the 
demands  and  tasks  of  the  moral  life ;  no  standino- 
still,  no  idle  letting  alone,  is  permitted.  It  is  only 
the  faithful  one  who  perseveres  unweariedly  in  toil 
and  conflict,  who  wins  the  crown  of  moral  perfection. 
But  what  holds  true  of  the  individual  life,  holds  in 
a  still  greater  degree  of  the  whole  life  of  the  peoples 
and  of  mankind.  For  the  more  complicated  a  moral 
organism  is,  so  much  the  more  difficult  is  it  to  estab- 
lish and  to  preserve  the  harmonious  order  of  its  mani- 
fold directions  of  will.  Here  it  is  not  merely  individ- 
ual natural  impulses  that  stand  over  against  each  other, 
but  the  morally  justified  interests  of  life  in  the  dif- 
ferent groups  of  society  struggle  with  each  other 
for  the  supremacy ;  the  wellbeing  of  the  people  as  a 
whole  must  be  purchased  by  sacrifice  of  the  individuals. 
The  severest  conflicts  and  sufferings  for  the  people, 
however,  grow  out  of  the  progress  of  the  moral  and 
religious  modes  of  thinking  and  feeling.  When  old 
practices  and  dogmas  are  felt  to  be  untrue  and  unright. 


324  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

and  new  ideals  of  a  civil  or  ecclesiastical  kind  are  en- 
deavouring to  obtain  validity,  then  arises  the  struggle 
between  the  existing  order,  which  has  been  consecrated 
by  the  authority  of  the  Fathers,  and  the  bearers  of 
the  new  ideas.  Here  it  is  not  wrong  that  stands 
against  right,  but  it  is  the  right  of  the  past  which 
stands  against  the  right  of  the  future.  It  is  the  idea 
which  has  embodied  itself  in  the  actuality  of  the 
public  life,  and  which  has  authenticated  its  vitality — 
which  indeed  it  has  already  more  or  less  exhausted — 
it  is  this  idea  which  stands  in  opposition  to  the  other 
idea  which  would  now  first  realise  itself,  and  which 
has  yet  to  prove  its  capacity  of  life.  These  are  the 
hardest,  the  truly  tragic,  oppositions  and  struggles  of 
the  world's  history,  out  of  which  the  bitterest  pains 
of  humanity  have  grown  at  all  times.  But  how  could 
humanity  have  been  spared  these  sufferings  if  it  is 
to  develop  all  its  innate  capacities  and  approach 
the  ideal  of  an  all-embracing  harmony,  the  ideal  of 
a  divine-human  organism  or  kingdom  ?  "  Ought  not 
Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things,  and  to  enter 
into  His  glory  ? "  This  fate  of  the  greatest  of  the 
sons  of  men  is  typical  of  the  fate  of  the  whole  of 
mankind.  Viewed  in  its  light,  the  whole  history  of 
the  world  appears  as  a  single  magnificent  Theodicy, 
and  all  the  sufferings  of  peoples  and  individuals  are 
transfigured  into  means  of  salvation.     All  the  battle- 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  325 

fields  of  the  world's  history,  and  all  the  martyr-pyres  of 
the  Church's  past,  become  sacrificial  altars  upon  which 
man  has  offered  his  sacrifices  in  order  to  purchase  his 
redemption  from  the  slavery  of  vanity,  and  his  ele- 
vation to  the  glory  of  the  liberty  of  the  children  of 
God. 

If  we  can  thus  combine  the  worst  evils  which  accrue 
to  humanity  from  its  own  historical  development,  with 
the  teleology  of  the  divine  order  of  the  world  and 
salvation,  then  the  comparatively  smaller  evils  which 
arise  to  it  from  the  order  of  nature  will  no  longer 
present  any  insuperable  difficulty.  In  so  far  as  man 
is  a  natural  being,  he  must  also  share  the  lot  of  all 
flesh;  he  must  suffer  death  and  other  natural  evils. 
And  to  these  evils  he  is  exposed  even  more  than  the 
beasts,  because  he  is  more  finely — and  therefore  more 
sensitively — organised,  and  because  he  is  more  helpless 
and  defenceless  in  his  isolation  than  they  are.  But  this 
very  physical  defencelessness  of  his  compelled  him  from 
the  beginning  to  enter  into  social  union,  and  led  him 
thereby  into  the  path  of  civilisation.  His  more  sensi- 
tive organism,  however,  is  connected  with  his  intelli- 
gence, in  which  he  possesses  the  victorious  weapon  for 
the  domination  of  nature.  The  sufferings  inflicted  by 
external  nature,  which  the  beast  only  passively  endures, 
become  for  man  means  of  stimulation  which  incite 
his  senses  to  lasting  attention  and  his  understanding 


326  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

to  reflection,  to  meditative  observation  and  anticipative 
calculation.  But  by  means  of  observation  and  reflec- 
tion man  gradually  learns  in  the  course  of  time  by 
listening  to  nature  to  make  out  her  laws,  and  to  employ 
her  forces  for  his  own  ends.  The  whole  history  of 
civilisation  is  an  advancing  victory  of  the  human  spirit 
over  crude  nature,  a  victory  which  he  would  never  have 
reached  without  the  constant  spur  of  physical  evils, 
Nature  thus  proves  herself,  not  less  in  her  beneficial 
than  in  her  prejudicial  operations,  the  means  which 
excellently  serves  the  end  of  the  spirit, — the  granite 
foundation  upon  whose  fast-ordered  structure  man  is 
able  to  erect  the  edifice  of  his  civilisation,  the  temple 
of  the  eternal  spirit.  How  then  can  we  complain 
about  this  order  of  nature  which  bears  the  whole 
human  existence  with  all  its  spiritual  goods,  because 
out  of  its  ordered  course  in  detail  there  also  proceeds 
many  a  check  and  destruction  to  the  happiness  of 
human  life  ?  Ought  not  the  experience  of  the  inevit- 
ableness  of  natural  evils,  which  indeed,  in  spite  of 
all  the  progress  of  civilisation,  are  yet  not  wholly 
spared  to  any  mortal,  rather  serve  to  give  us  the  whole- 
some warning  that  man's  highest  goal  and  good  is 
not  to  be  sought  in  the  world  of  sense,  but  in  the 
world  of  the  spirit,  whose  eternal  good  things  are 
not  affected  by  the  happenings  and  changes  of  the 
course  of  nature  ? 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  327 

If  we  take  all  these  considerations  together,  we  shall 
now  be  able  to  say  that  the  true  religious  optimism, 
as  Christianity  understands  it,  does  not  consist  in  this, 
that  the  actual  is  to  be  held  without  further  considera- 
tion as  good,  nor  that  the  evil  in  it  is  to  be  ignored ;  but 
it  consists  in  this,  that  the  actual  world  is  to  be  viewed 
as  a  teleological  process  of  development,  through  which 
the  good,  the  divine  world  -  purpose,  always  realises 
itself  more  and  more  —  a  process  of  development 
from  which,  however,  evils  are  so  little  excluded  that 
they  rather  serve  as  necessary  and  wholesome  means 
for  the  good,  which  can  only  realise  itself  through 
their  subdual.  In  this  view  of  the  world,  in 
which  resignation  and  trust  are  combined,  consists 
also  the  kernel  of  the  religious  belief  in  Providence. 
In  some  sense  or  other  it  is  found  in  all  religions, 
inasmuch  as  belief  in  some  sort  of  divine  government 
in  human  things  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
belief  in  God  generally.  But  upon  heathen  soil  the 
belief  in  Providence  always  remains  wavering  and 
uncertain,  partly  because  of  the  want  of  the  unity 
of  the  divine  will,  and  partly,  in  particular,  because 
of  the  want  of  a  single  and  moral  world -purpose. 
Plato  and  the  later  Stoics — Seneca,  Epictetus,  Marcus 
Aurelius — approached  most  nearly  to  the  Biblical  be- 
lief in  Providence,  yet  even  they  did  not  attain  to  the 
clear   thought  of   a  positive    moral    final    end  of  the 


328  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

world;  and  hence  in  their  belief  in  Providence  the 
mood  of  resignation  always  again  breaks  through  above 
that  of  trust.  It  was  in  the  ethical  Monotheism  of 
the  Hebrew  prophets  that  the  belief  in  Providence 
first  rose  to  the  conviction  of  a  divine  government  of 
the  world  which  aimed  at  the  realising  of  moral  final 
ends.  Nevertheless  these  ends  were  at  first  rather 
national  than  purely  and  universally  human.  In  the 
Psalms  the  prophetic  belief  in  Providence  individual- 
ised itself  into  the  consciousness  of  a  personal  union 
with  God,  and  consequently  also  into  a  divine  guid- 
ance of  the  individual  life.  Christianity  has  spirit- 
ually deepened  the  belief  in  Providence  exhibited  in 
the  Psalms,  and  it  has  partly  expanded  it  universally ; 
for  it  has  found  the  life-purpose  of  the  individual  in 
his  participation  in  the  universal  spiritual  good  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  the  final  end  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment of  the  world.  The  individual  belief  in  Provi- 
dence contained  in  the  Psalms  is  combined  in  Chris- 
tianity with  the  social  belief  in  which  it  took  form 
in  the  Prophets.  Now,  however,  it  is  no  longer  na- 
tionally limited,  but  is  expanded  so  as  to  embrace 
mankind  as  a  whole,  and  so  that  the  spiritual  salvation 
of  all  is  recognised  as  the  purpose  of  the  divine  love, 
for  the  realisation  of  which  the  whole  course  of  the 
world  is  ordered  by  the  divine  wisdom.  And  accord- 
ing to  this  its  religious  kernel,  the  belief  in  Providence 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  329 

is  unassailable,  and  has  no  refutation  to  fear  either 
from  experience  or  from  scientific  knowledge  of  the 
world. 

The  belief  in  Providence,  however,  inevitably  comes 
into  conflict  with  the  realistic  view  of  the  world  when- 
ever Providence  is  referred  to  egoistically  limited  ends, 
which  depend  upon  natural  conditions,  and  which  con- 
sequently could  be  brought  about  only  by  the  inter- 
ferences of  an  abstract  supernatural  Omnipotence  with 
the  ordered  course  of  nature.  Where  such  interfer- 
ences by  Providence  are  expected,  disillusions  cannot 
fail  to  come,  and  these  have  as  their  consequence 
doubt  of  Providence  generally.  It  is  a  quite  natural 
dialectic,  in  which  one  may  almost  perceive  a  just 
Nemesis,  that  the  presumptuous  supernaturalism  which 
would  put  the  omnipotence  of  the  government  of  the 
world  at  the  disposal  of  the  individual  for  his  own 
narrow  limited  purposes,  reverts  under  the  disillu- 
sions  of  actual  experience  into  the  radical  unbelief  of 
a  naturalism  which  recognises  nothing  higher  behind 
the  causal  necessity  of  the  course  of  nature,  and  ends 
in  heathen  comfortlessness.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
Providence  is  apprehended  in  the  truly  Christian  sense 
that  the  whole  natural  and  historical  order  of  the 
world  is  the  means  for  the  realisation  of  the  universal 
highest  end, — the  ideal  humanity, — then  not  only  does 
this  religious  view  of  the  world  stand  in  no  contra- 


330  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION. 

diction  with  the  intellectual  knowledge  of  the  connec- 
tion of  things  in  conformity  with  law,  but  the  two 
views  complete  each  other,  as  teleology  and  causal- 
ism   form    all    over    only   the   two   sides    of    the   one 
truth.     For  the  mechanism  of  the  causal  connection 
is    nowhere    an    end    in    itself.      It   is   not   the   ulti- 
mate meaning  of  the  world,  but  only  the  ministering 
instrument  {^irixavrj)  for  the  system  of  spiritual  and 
moral  ends  which  stands  over  it.     If,  then,  according 
to   the  Christian   belief  in   Providence,  the  whole  of 
the  world  in  its  course  in  time  is  ordered  to  serve 
the  highest  end  of  the  divine  government  of  the  world, 
or  the  kingdom  of  the  divinely-good,  as  the  means  of 
its   realisation,  then  it   is   self-evident  that  all  indi- 
vidual   happening,   which   belongs   to    the   connection 
of  the  whole  and  is  naturally  caused  in  it,  can  and 
must  also  serve  as  a  ministering  means  for  that  same 
highest  end.     And  seeing  that  in  the  universal  pur- 
pose, as  the  common  highest  good  of  humanity,  the 
true  good  of  all  individuals  is  also  included,  it  is  a 
logical   conclusion   that    all    events    which    affect   the 
individual  in  his  particular  course  of  life  are  to  be 
viewed  and  turned  to   account   as   furthering   means 
also  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  highest  personal  purpose 
in  life.     As  Paul  says,  "  All  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God"  (Eonians  viii.  28).     To 
him   who   estimates   life   generally   from   the   highest 


OPTIMISM  AND  PESSIMISM.  331 

tion  in  human  point  of  view  of  the  divine  purpose,  all 
the  experiences  of  life  obtain  the  significance  of  a 
God-ordered  means  of  education  and  salvation.  This 
sentiment,  which  combines  resignation  with  elevation, 
humbleness  with  confidence  and  power,  is  the  practical 
verification  of  the  religious  view  of  the  world.  "  Our 
faith  is  the  victory  which  has  overcome  the  world." 


END    OF    THE    FIRST    VOLUME. 


PRINTED  BY  WILLIAII  BLACKWOOD  AND  SOXS. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


OCT  S  5  1956 

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